


Something Good Can Work

by howler32557038



Series: The Simple Life [9]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Bearded Steve Rogers, Blood Loss, Bottom Bucky Barnes, Breastfeeding, Canon-Typical Violence, Childbirth, Cliffhangers, Dialogue Heavy, Disasters, Drama, Family Feels, Language, M/M, Male Lactation, Medical Examination, Medical Procedures, Mpreg, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Post Mpreg, Post The Simple Life, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romance, Sequel, Series, Top Steve Rogers, graphic birth, parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-05-06 00:47:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 63,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14630541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/howler32557038/pseuds/howler32557038
Summary: Sequel to "The Simple Life."Lincoln isn't ready to share his parents with a new family member. Bucky isn't ready to have another baby. Steve isn't balancing work and family too well these days. No one is ready for another potentially world-ending event.





	1. Forty Day Dream

**Author's Note:**

  * For [drawgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/drawgirl/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Simple Life](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6687631) by [howler32557038](https://archiveofourown.org/users/howler32557038/pseuds/howler32557038). 



> Welcome back!
> 
> I haven't had time to write in months. Technically, I don't have time NOW...but I desperately needed a creative outlet. I have an amazing job now, and almost no financial troubles, and I'm building my credit like a grown-up, and I have health insurance and life insurance and a 401k and a great retirement plan...which is all incredible after so many years of poverty and such a long stretch of unemployment after that head injury! Unfortunately, I'm not left with much time to write. I write for about one hour a day, and I'm so thankful that I've been able to shape that into something I feel comfortable sharing.
> 
> Thank you guys for the overwhelming support for The Simple Life. I hope you enjoy the rest of the story!

Lincoln has not had a good day.

His dad has been gone since last month. He hardly remembers what he _looks like_ , except for when he looks at the pictures on the bookshelf. His papa has been a jerk all day — cereal for breakfast, a bologna sandwich for lunch (with _cold_ bologna), leftovers for dinner, and in between, he’d ignored him. Bruce Banner had knocked on the door twice, but both times he’d visited, he’d just ruffled up Lincoln’s hair or patted his back and then disappeared into the bedroom with Papa. Lincoln had tried to talk to him as he’d hurried back out the door, but Bruce didn’t really pay attention. That had never happened before. He doesn’t like it.

So, Lincoln had tried to watch a movie, but Papa’d said the noise hurt his head and made him turn it off, so he had built a fort in the living room. Forts didn’t make any noise. But his Papa had been mad about that, too. He’d gotten quiet and mean and made him help tear it down and pick up all his stuff off the floor, and then he’d laid down on the couch with a pillow over his face. He seemed like he was in a really bad mood.

Lincoln had tried to be the bigger person and cheer him up. He’d covered him with a blanket, and even though he’d said, “Thank you,” he had kicked it off a few seconds later. Lincoln had tried everything. He’d offered to work a puzzle with him, to fix them both a snack, to go get the Legos, read to him, whatever he wanted. But after Lincoln had just about run himself out of helpful ideas, all his Papa had said was, “Go play out in the common room.”

Lincoln had tried the blanket one more time.

“Lincoln. Please.” And off went the blanket again.

So Lincoln had stomped out the door, and just before he’d shut it, he’d called his Papa a really rude word that he’s heard his Dad say: _Asshole._

Not even _that_ had gotten his Papa’s attention. He hadn’t even yelled.

There was no one else to play with. Nathaniel and Natalie were back home with their mom and dad. Tony was off doing Iron Man stuff, Peter was with him, Bruce was busy, Sam was with Dad. Nobody knew or cared that he’d pretty much been kicked out of his own house.

He’d tried to rebuild his fort in the big common room, but there were no blankets. Just chairs and pillows. He ends up building more of a pillow-box, and he shuts himself in with a couch cushion. Too bad he hadn’t brought anything with him to do.

His new fort is just...boring. And dark.

Lincoln is getting _really_ tired of the new baby making his papa act like a dick all the time. He’s had a bad attitude for days now. He’s getting scared that it might be permanent.

He curls up on the common room floor, surrounded by the ugly yellow pillows, and tries to decide what he’ll do if his papa keeps being such a problem. Maybe he could call a family meeting and talk to Papa _and_ Dad about it. He could probably make a really good presentation on his Starkpad.

Or maybe he could go live with Sam for a while. Just until the new baby gets here. Or, if the new baby turns out to be terrible, maybe he can just live with Sam forever.

Maybe Clint will adopt him, and he can go live at their house and swim at the lake with Natalie everyday. He decides that sounds like the best idea. He thinks about it for a long time — about all the sunshine, and the trees, and getting lost in the woods, and showing Natalie how to play baseball, and drawing pictures for her. She’d be so impressed with his drawings. She’d probably fall in love with him and then they’d get married. Then they’d have their _own_ house, and they’d have _tons_ of pillows and blankets and chairs for forts, and they could play video games in them. Not educational video games, either. The kind Lyla and Cooper had.

He thinks about it so hard that he can _see_ it. It’s really nice. 

* * *

 

Lincoln sits up really fast. He had been asleep, and then he’d heard something that made him open his eyes just a little, and he’d seen a shape looking at him from outside his fort.

“Woah, woah, just me, Slim.”

Oh, good. Just Sam. Lincoln’s sudden alertness goes away, and he realizes he’s still pretty sleepy. But he’s really sore, too. The floor out here is way too hard to sleep on.

“Come on out of there.”

Lincoln doesn’t even open his eyes. Too tired. He army-crawls out of the doorway that Sam busted through, and Sam scoops him off the floor and carries him, just like his dad does. His Papa used to carry him a lot too, but not lately. His Dad says it’s because he’s carrying the new baby all the time and he can’t put it down, and it’s hard to carry two things. Lincoln hadn’t argued, but he had wanted to ask _then why would you have two kids if you can only carry one?_

He’s pretty sure Sam could carry two.

Even though he’s not quite awake, Lincoln thinks they’ve been walking too long to be going back to his apartment.

Wait — if Sam is home, maybe his dad is home, too. But why wouldn’t his dad come back to the apartment? He sits up and makes his eyes open. Sam’s eyebrows are squishing together. Lincoln doesn’t like that.

“Did Dad get hurt?”

“Nah,” Sam laughs, patting his back. “Everybody’s just fine.”

“But he’s home, though?”

“Yup, we’re gonna go see him right now,” Sam promises, carrying him onto the elevator and pressing the _three_ button.

“Three is medical,” Lincoln says, trying not to sound scared in front of Sam. “You said Dad wasn’t hurt.”

“Have I ever lied to you and gotten caught? Huh?” Sam grins. “Nobody’s hurt, okay? But...” he makes the word long, like he’s going to tell him something really cool. “They _think_ your Papa’s gonna have the new baby tonight.”

“Oh.”

That’s not very cool. The elevator lurches. “Can you put me down?” Once his feet are on the ground, he runs over to one of the hand-rails and holds on. “Sorry. If somebody’s carrying me when I’m on the elevator, it makes me want to puke.”

Sam laughs really hard about that. “So, that’s what makes the difference, huh? You know, when your Papa was pregnant with you, you used to kick and punch like crazy when he’d get on this elevator. You _hated_ it. Made his belly jump like in _Alien._ ”

Usually, Lincoln would think that was neat, but right now, it just makes him think about the _new_ baby being there. He knows it’s really his Papa’s belly, but if he’d been in there so long when he was a baby, it was _kind of_ his, too. Sam must notice that his face doesn’t look too happy. When Lincoln doesn’t say anything back, Sam pushes the _stop_ button on the wall.

“Okay, talk.”

“Well, I don’t really want to.”

“Then I guess we’re gonna stay in this elevator forever.”

Lincoln shrugs. “That’s fine.”

Sam sighs. “Want me to guess?”

Lincoln still doesn’t say anything, but he kind of _does_ wish Sam could just guess.

Sam puts his hands on his forehead and hums, like he’s using telepathy to read Lincoln’s mind. It’s pretty hard not to laugh at him. “Let me see…you...are worried that this new baby is going to make your life miserable, that your parents are going to spend all their time with it, and that they’re going to ignore you forever and give the baby all your stuff. Was I close?”

Lincoln wants to just say _no_ , but instead he starts feeling like somebody punched him in the throat and his eyes fill up with tears. He keeps them from falling for a few seconds, but when Sam grabs him by the arm and yanks him over to hug him, they accidentally spill everywhere and he cries for real.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to say anything. Just listen for a second. You remember how many big sisters I’ve got?”

“Six,” he guesses.

“Four. Well, guess how many _little_ sisters I’ve got?”

Lincoln shrugs. Sam can probably feel it, because he’s still hugging him.

“ _Zero._ My mom had me, and then decided she’d had enough. She didn’t want to have anymore. That meant I had to be the baby. _Forever_. Oh man, I wanted a little brother or sister _so_ bad, Slim — being the baby was the worst. Everybody picked on me, and everybody was older than me. Kinda like Natalie and Nathaniel are older than you. You know how they boss you around all the time? Well, _now_ you’re not gonna be the littlest kid anymore. You get to be a big brother. Do you know how jealous that makes me?”

“You wanted a...” and Lincoln _tries_ to say the words nicely, “...new baby?”

“That’s what I asked for every year, for my birthday _and_ Christmas. That’s how bad I wanted it. Hey — you wanna know a secret?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright, but you gotta keep your mouth shut. Deal?”

“Deal.”

Sam pushes him away so he can look right at him. “You’re going to have what I wanted more than anything else in the whole world.” He says the next part like every word is capitalized, like the guys who give away the cars at the end of TV shows. “You are going to have a baby sister.”

Lincoln starts feeling just a _little_ different all of a sudden. Not much different, but a little. He’s still worried about all the same things, but he doesn’t want to act like a brat in front of Sam. He wants Sam to know he’s okay. Being a big brother is definitely better if you can have a little sister instead of just a “new baby.” It makes him feel important.

Maybe his little sister will think he’s awesome. Why wouldn’t she? He’s _five years_ older than her. Nathaniel isn’t even five years older than him, and he’s already so tall and smart, and he can rollerblade. That, and when Sam says it...it does sound kind of cool. Lincoln doesn’t want to smile quite yet, but his mouth does it anyway.

“There you go,” Sam laughs.

“You think I’m going to be a good brother?”

Sam puts his finger back on the _three_ button. “I think you’re gonna write the _book_ on being a big brother, Slim.”

“Does that mean good?”

“Oh, it means good. Get ready, I’m starting the elevator back up — _Matrix_ , go.”

Sam pushes the button really hard, and they grab the handrails just as it starts to go down, and they both put their feet up in the air in slow motion. Sam can make it look like he’s floating for real, and the _whoosh_ sounds he does with his mouth helps a lot.

Just before they reach the medical floor, Lincoln decides that it’s now or never, and he _needs_ a contingency plan. A _contingency plan_ is a thing his dads have talked about. You need one when something might be a catastrophe.

So he pushes the _stop_ button. “But if I _have_ to leave...can I live with you? Just in case this is a catastrophe?”

“What’s your name?”

“Lincoln.”

“Your other name.”

“Slim?”

“Nah, the really long one.”

“Lincoln Samuel Barnes-Rogers.”

“ _Lincoln_ is the part that’s just for you. _Rogers_ is the part that’s for your Dad. _Barnes_ is for your Papa. You know why that _Samuel_ is there?”

“Because of you?”

“Just for me.”

“So, what? You’re kind of my dad, too?”

“I’m your backup dad, in case anything ever happens to the first two.”

“Like a contingency plan.”

“Exactly like that.”

Lincoln feels like he’s got all his bases covered now. This time, he pushes the _three_ button himself. “Okay, let’s go get my baby sister.”


	2. Three Day Weekend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky's back in the game.

Bucky’s day isn’t going well.

He usually does alright without Steve around, even when a mission pulls him away for weeks at a time. Both of them manage just fine without the other. It’s an unfortunate necessity, given their line of work.

Initially, Bucky had been nothing but supportive of Steve taking this mission. It was obviously important, if Tony would request his help with it, just when he was days away from starting paternity leave. Bucky doesn’t know where Steve is or what he’s doing, which isn’t unusual — it was the kind of mission that you didn’t get briefed on until you were in the field. Something high priority and sensitive, so probably political, and Steve couldn’t talk about it. Fortunately, they weren’t barred from contacting each other.

Steve leaves two days after Christmas. Bucky never has to call — Steve calls _him_ twice a day. Sometimes more. Asks the same questions every time.

_You alright?_

_How you holding up?_

_Can I talk to him?_

On the morning of January 30th, Bucky wakes up around what should be dawn. Instead, he finds the bedroom window dark. He can hear the sharp static-noise of freezing rain pelting the glass. There’s a hard wind bowing the trees at the edge of the Facility’s grounds.

He turns on the bedside lamp and hauls himself up, only to find that he’s bled through his sweatpants onto the sheets. Not enough blood to constitute an emergency, but enough to make him sure. He calls Steve.

“Bucky? You alright?”

He doesn’t bother with good morning. “Can they spare you?”

An electric moment passes before the reply comes. “They’re gonna have to.”

Bucky can hear a note of eagerness coloring the exhaustion in Steve’s roughened voice. A few seconds of muffled voices follow, presumably as Steve lets his team in on the situation.

“I’m leaving right now, but—”

“How long?”

“God damn it — _fuck_ ,” Steve whispers. Bucky’s not sure if he knows that his comm picks it up. “Could be eight or nine hours. Do you think—?”

“No contractions, just a little bleeding so far.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Be careful.”

“Always am.”

And the conversation ends.

Bucky only has time to throw some dirty towels on the stained bed and start the shower before he feels that familiar ache creeping into his core. Not just bleeding anymore, then.

He takes a long, slow breath, consciously relaxing every muscle in his body and sinking forward to lean against the cool tiles on the shower wall.

It won’t be the end of the world if this is all over with before Steve gets home. He wouldn’t mind a quick, easy labor, anyway. But even now that he’s facing down that mounting pain and feeling his nerves start to buzz with apprehension, he _hopes_ it lasts all day.

He knows he can do this without Steve — he just doesn’t _want_ to do this without Steve.

* * *

 

In a perfect world, he would have stayed in the shower for the rest of the day, secure in the knowledge that the Facility’s supply of hot water is virtually unlimited. But Lincoln needs to eat breakfast. Bucky considers trying to get through that day’s lesson plan with him, and quickly realizes that the idea is completely laughable given the current magnitude of his back-pain and irritability. And he needs to call Bruce.

And Ruth.

And get a bag together before he has to head to the medical wing and find someone to take Lincoln, possibly overnight. And think of a name for his still-nameless daughter and put some bedclothes in her crib. And pump — probably a few times, if the swelling and discomfort in his chest is any indicator. Somewhere in between all of that, _he_ needs to eat. The ops reports piling up on the kitchen counter will have to wait another week. Maybe more.

So, he showers for four minutes. Instead of phone calls, Bruce and Ruth both get identical texts — _In laboratory. Will keep you updated_ , each followed by a secondary message reading, _LABOR_. The clarifications take an extra minute out of his day that his anxiety would rather not have spared.

He ties his wet hair back and dons what might the last pair of clean sweatpants in the apartment. It won’t hurt Lincoln to get an extra half hour of sleep while he pumps, so he throws a bowl of dry oatmeal in the microwave, along with butter, syrup, and milk, and when the unmixed mess is hot, he slices a banana into it with a spoon. It’s good enough. He shuffles back into the bedroom with his haphazardly prepared breakfast and the entire pitcher of water that they keep in the refrigerator.

He manages to eat the oatmeal, drink out of the pitcher, pump, and answer an onslaught of questions from Bruce via text simultaneously. Noise from just beyond the door between his own bedroom and Lincoln’s signals an almost certain halt to his productivity. He barely has time to throw a blanket over his shoulders before his son stumbles in, eyes still shut and hair like a tangled bird’s nest.

“Hi, baby,” Bucky sighs, trying to sweeten his tone as Lincoln climbs into the bed, heedless of the towels covering the bloodstain, and wedges himself against Bucky’s side. Instantly, his sleepy fingers are fidgeting with the dial on the electric pump. “Don’t mess with that,” Bucky reminds him, as gently as he possibly can.

“Doesn’t that thing hurt?”

 _Only when my five year old cranks it up._ “It did, at first. I got used to it.” Bucky tips his head, perplexed and wondering if he really wants to ask what he’s going to ask. “Buddy, you wearing any shorts under that t-shirt, or what?”

Lincoln shakes his head.

“Go put on some underpants.”

“I don’t have any.”

 _Goddamnit._ All that laundry he’d finally remembered to wash last night, and then he never put it in the dryer. “I’ll grab you some in a second,” he mumbles, guilt dampening every word. “Sorry.”

“Can I have some of that?”

Bucky chokes back a disappointed sigh, and hands over what’s left of his oatmeal — mostly banana slices, which he’d been saving for last, coveting the sweetness at the end of a bland meal. He’ll never keep food from Lincoln. Not under any circumstances.

Enhanced strength and an accelerated growth rate had sounded like such blessings at first, but as Lincoln’s genetic enhancements had manifested, so had a fierce, unquenchable metabolism. His body demanded more calories per day than his little stomach could hold, which meant supplemental shakes with every meal and between meals, along with a constant supply of calorie-dense snacks. And the poor kid was still skinny as could be. Bucky’s annoyance over the loss of his breakfast gives way easily to a relieved smile as Lincoln passes the empty bowl back to him a few minutes later.

“How’s about a three day weekend?”

“No school?” Lincoln mumbles. Oatmeal always seems to knock him out.

“No school.”

“But yesterday you said we could learn the rest of the Henry Eight thing.”

Bucky snorts. They’ve worked their way up to the 1500s in European history, and Lincoln seems to think the reign of Henry VIII is the funniest joke his Papa’s ever told. “But you _could_ sleep in.”

“Okay.” And Lincoln lets himself tip right over onto Bucky’s pillows, jams his legs under the covers, and settles in. Bucky would have preferred for him to go back to his own room, but unless he carries him (which doesn’t sound appealing at the moment), he can see that no amount of coaxing will move him now. He finishes pumping in an awkward state of near-privacy, and then relocates to the living room.

The pain of labor’s earliest stages is nothing he can’t work past — not when there’s so much that needs to be done before he’s out of commission. He cleans the living room. He puts bed-clothes in the crib. He puts the laundry in the dryer. He packs a bag to take with him to medical. He opens the refrigerator, intending to make himself another bowl of oatmeal, and—

And he sits down on the floor.

A minute passes. One minute becomes five minutes. Then ten. And Bucky still hasn’t found the will to stand back up.

With the cool air from the fridge pouring over his face and the hard tile putting pressure on his pelvis, he sees no reason to move until this cramp is over with. Other benefits of his current position include his close proximity to the garbage can, which he drags over just as the nausea becomes unbearable, and vomits. The convulsions only make him bleed more, and by the time he can stop throwing up, his last pair of sweatpants are soaked through at the inseam, and the white floor is streaked red.

“Dr. Banner is on his way, Bucky.” At least Friday has the wherewithal to keep her volume low.

“No — fuck. Don’t call him, Friday.”

“I didn’t call him. You sent him a text message. Should I ask him to bring a wheelchair?”

“I don’t need a wheelchair.”

“You appear to have collapsed.”

“I _sat down_. Look, I don’t want to talk right now.”

Friday doesn’t respond to that, thank God. Bucky shuts his eyes, prepared to ride out the remainder of this awful cramp he’s still having.

On the counter above him, just out of reach, his cell phone rings.

Out of sheer frustration, he bangs his head into the cabinet behind him and kicks the refrigerator door closed. The clatter of several items falling out of the racks on the door makes him immediately regret the outburst. The phone goes on buzzing frantically.

It takes him so long to drag himself up that he misses the call, anyway. Bruce’s number. Bucky looks down, frowning as he realizes that his white sock is soaking up the little puddle of blood he’d left on the tile.

He leans over the counter and puts his head in his hands, trying to take a few deep breaths without screaming with unchecked rage. Instead, he makes a conscious choice to cope appropriately, and address the underlying issue that's making him want to scream.

“Friday, what’s Steve’s location?”

“He’s boarded the Quinjet. Coordinates are classified.”

“How about his ETA? Is that fucking classified?”

“Nine and a half hours.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” he very nearly screams.

Someone bangs on the door. Probably Bruce. Bucky clenches his jaw and shuffles slowly toward the entryway, wishing he had the time to change his pants. He doesn’t even _have_ another pair of pants. Bruce starts shouting before he can get there.

“Hello? Hey, Bucky, you up? I just called but—”

Bucky opens the door. Poor Bruce looks like he just rolled out of bed, threw on whatever clothes he could find, grabbed his bag, and rushed down there. Great. Stress, pain, rage, nausea, hunger, _and_ guilt. What a fucking morning.

“Sorry, Bruce, I’m — shit. Sorry. Come in.”

“Wow, Jesus. You kinda look like shit,” Bruce smiles absently, and immediately pales with embarrassment. “Well — you know, I just mean there’s some blood on your pants and you seem kinda tired.”

“Don’t worry about it. Figured I looked like shit.”

“Oh, good, cool. Wow, that’s actually a lot of bleeding—”

“It’s not bad, it’s just — _fuck_ me, what the hell.” Bucky finally follows Bruce’s eyes downward to the creme-colored carpet, and the meandering line of red stains leading from the kitchen to the entryway. “Oh. Yeah.” He lifts his left foot to reveal the blood soaking the bottom of his sock. In the interest of keeping the remainder of the carpet unsoiled, he tries to reach down and take his sock off before letting Bruce in.

And of course, that’s been impossible for a month. He can’t reach it.

“Uh, wait, I’ll—” Bruce looks like he wants to help, but can’t quite figure out how to do it. He sinks awkwardly to his knees, and Bucky hesitantly raises his foot up, wobbles, and ends up leaning on Bruce’s head for balance. “Okay, alright, don’t pull my hair—”

“Sorry—”

“No, but — don’t fall—”

“Just pull it off.”

“Can’t get it over your ankle—”

“Well, they swelled up.”

Bruce stands up with the dirty sock pinched delicately between his fingers, and Bucky relieves him of it and wads it up in his fist, embarrassed by the very sight of it.

“Anyway, I was just gonna stop by and check your dilation. If — if that’s cool, because I could give it an hour.”

“No, we better do it now.”

“Jeez,” Bruce sighs suddenly, grimacing. “Is Steve gonna be able to get here, you think? He’s probably gonna miss this.”

Bucky can’t respond. If he opens his mouth or tries to express a sentiment of any kind, he’ll cry. He doesn’t feel like crying. Not right now, not in front of Bruce. Not when he has so much shit to do.

And he’s crying.

Bruce is kind enough — or flustered enough — not to comment on Bucky’s sudden, uncontrollable, rasping sobs. Instead, he goes right into the kitchen, grabs a dishcloth, and makes a pass over the carpet with some detergent and cold water, then wipes up the tile. It seems to calm Bruce down and give him some time to collect himself.

Luckily, that gives Bucky a few minutes to stem the persistent flow of those fucking hormone-driven tears.

He has cried more during this goddamn pregnancy than he’s cried in all the collective years of his _life_. The same goes for vomiting. He hadn’t realized what an ideal pregnancy he’d had with Lincoln. His back had been sore, his breast-tissue had been a little tender, he’d dealt without about a month’s worth of morning sickness, and he’d craved greasy breakfast food at all hours. That was it. And he was so cluelessly certain that that was as tough as it could get. God, he misses those days.

But _this_ — _this_ bullshit has been everything they warn you pregnancy might be. Eight months of morning sickness. Vomiting every time he eats more than a light meal. Insomnia, unbelievably strange dreams, snoring so loudly that he wakes himself up and Steve (when he’s home) has to sneak out to the sofa to get any rest. Cravings for shit that’s not even _edible_. Mostly pencils. Sometimes potpourri. Violent mood swings. Sweating — _constantly._ A fucking _cold_. An honest to God cold, like he hasn’t had since he was seventeen years old and managed to catch a bug from Steve, and it had lasted two weeks. And somehow, all that wasn’t enough — no, this one had to hit him where it hurt: his memory is absolutely nonexistent.

This baby had better turn out to be the second coming of Christ, for all she's put him through. He’d thought it would be _easier_ this time.

“Okay, let’s just put a towel down on the couch or something, see how far along we are — Oh, hey there, buddy.”

“Bruce!”

And then...there’s Lincoln. The best thing that’s ever happened to him. The love of his life. His purpose, his joy, his beautiful, brilliant son, who argues with him and climbs on his belly and won’t ever let him use the bathroom alone and eats like a garbage disposal and occasionally puts tinfoil in the microwave. The reason that his prosthetic fingers don’t seem to work quite right anymore, because the joints are sticky with food debris and bits of crayon. His sweet little boy, who sometimes shows up in the living room to greet company with _no goddamn pants at all._

“Get some underwear on, now.”

“But you didn’t do the laundry!”

“Get a pair out of the dryer.”

“But you said not to open it when it’s spinning again—”

“I _said_ put your _pants_ on.”

And maybe it’s the fact that another cramp is winding up, but Bucky hears his own voice take on an unintentionally sharp edge — something threatening that he doesn’t like to think he would be capable of when speaking to Lincoln. Whatever kind of horrible parent it makes him, he wishes he could channel it every time he needed it, because Lincoln puts those pants on _fast_. Small victories.

Bruce looks incredibly uncomfortable to be standing in the middle of the exchange. The best apology Bucky can afford him is an sympathetic sigh.

“You want to...should we maybe do this in your bedroom?”

Bucky leads the way down the hall, trying not to limp from the pain radiating from his hips. “Doesn’t matter. Nowhere’s safe from him.”

Bruce makes a quick external pass over his abdomen, but his only comment is the same one Bucky’s heard from him a hundred times now: “Wow, she is _big_.”

The closer he gets to delivery, the less excited he is to hear that.

Following Bruce’s instructions, he takes off his sweats and lays down on his side at the edge of the mattress, one knee drawn up toward his chest. And however uncomfortable or invasive or humiliating the internal exam may be, Bucky hates it less than ever. Because he’s back in his bed, with his eyes shut and a pillow between his knees, and Bruce is telling him to relax in the kindest, _gentlest_ voice, talking him through every step and letting the words and medical terminology turn into a hypnotic drone, and it’s raining outside and the sky’s still dark...

He understands why Bruce has to wake him back up once he’s finished the exam.

He resents him anyway.

Bruce grins sympathetically, tossing his gloves into the trash. “You sleep through all of that?”

“I think so.”

“Man, my bedside manner must be awesome,” he jokes. “Alright, so — quick recap: I’m not seeing any dilation yet. I could definitely feel you having those contractions, though — you’re not imagining those.”

“So why am I bleeding so much?”

“Just that mucus plug coming out, and lots of busted capillaries. Totally normal when labor’s getting really close. Also — I mean, little bit of it’s from hemorrhoids, so—”

“Great,” Bucky deadpans. “Man, I thought Hydra was hard on my dignity. This is so much worse.”

“Well, you’ve been pregnant a few times now, Barnes. I’m surprised you lasted this long without ‘em—”

“Are you guys in here?”

“Yes, Lincoln,” Bucky replies, fighting valiantly against the urge to swear. “We sure are.”

“Papa, I put my pants on but they still feel wet.”

Lincoln has bypassed the locked bedroom door in the hallway and came straight through the shared door between their rooms. Bucky’s starting to wish he’d never added it at all. He throws a blanket over himself, because he knows he’s not going to make good time getting back into his sweatpants. “Would you knock? Just once. Ever.”

Lincoln ignores him completely in favor of throwing his arms violently around Banner. “Bruce, maybe you can stay. You could have breakfast with us.”

Bruce gives Lincoln a rueful smile and ruffles up his tangled hair. “Oh, I wish I had time, buddy. Looks like I’m going to have a busy day.”

“Papa, now _you_ have your pants off.”

“Yes, I do. Bruce had to check and see how the new baby was doing. This is why you knock before you come into someone’s room. Go brush your teeth.”

“I want to wait and brush my teeth with you—”

“I already brushed mine. Go.”

“Are you mad at me?”

“No, baby.”

“You sound mad at me—”

Bucky grabs Lincoln by the wrist and tugs him close, tucking him against his side. However badly his day might be going, he can’t let the stress spill into his relationship with his little boy, and he knows he doesn’t have Steve’s gift for keeping a easy, loving tone at all times. He knows how he wears a bad mood on his sleeve. “Listen here, sugar — I love you _so_ much. I am not mad at you.”

“Your voice still sounds mad.”

Bucky has a moment of clarity, almost like an out of body experience. His own voice replays in his mind like a flashback. He _does_ sound fucking mad. Damn. “I know, baby doll. I’m sorry. It’s because I don’t feel very good right now, so I need you to be patient with me today, alright?”

Lincoln buries his head in the crook of Bucky’s elbow. “Okay.”

“Thank you so much. Go brush your teeth and wash your face, and then we’ll eat breakfast.”

 _Breakfast_ does the trick. Lincoln gives him a fervent nod and hustles to the bathroom without any more whining, and only a brief parting word of, “Bye, Bruce!”

Bruce shakes his head. “I don’t know how you do it.”

“What, fuck up so much before noon?”

“No. No, no, no. You’re good at this. You do a great job with him.”

“Sure as hell doesn’t feel like it.”

“From what I hear...it never does.”

“I’m terrible at showing affection.”

“No,” Banner chuckles, “ _my_ dad was terrible at showing affection. You’re no pushover, but you’re fair. You’re a good dad.”

“I’m not gonna to be able to handle two. There’s no way. I’m gonna fuck this up.”

“You know, I remember when you said you couldn’t handle being pregnant at all. And then when you said you’d never be able to make it through labor, and that you’d never breastfeed, and then that you’d never wean him, and when you were so sure he would never learn to talk — well, you get it. What I’m saying is, you will figure this out, Barnes. Take it one step at a time. You and Steve always figure it out.”

And Bucky means to smile and thank him, but a bitter thought creeps in instead. Because Steve hasn’t really been around, has he? He knows that’s not Steve’s fault — the world needs Steve more than he does, right now. And he’d pushed Steve into taking on the mission. He’d made every assurance that he’d be alright on his own, and he had laughed and smiled for him until Steve had finally stepped onto the quinjet with a clenched jaw and a hundred backward glances. He has no right to regret it now.

So he changes the subject — rather, another contraction changes the subject on his behalf. “No dilation at all?”

“Oh no, definitely not. Your cervix is softening up, so we’re getting close, but it’s just prodromal labor for now. Well, not _just_ — sorry. False labor contractions can be as bad as the real thing, but she’s not going anywhere until your cervix effaces.”

“So...this could go on for a few more hours?”

“Oh, yeah. Unfortunately, yes. Could go on for a couple days, in fact, but some exercise might break your water and get it over with faster.”

“Is it fine to...not do that?”

Bruce suddenly seems to understand. “Yeah. Of course. Your water hasn’t broken, her heart-rate sounds good...just stay off your feet for now. We’ll worry about getting things moving later on. Once he gets home.”


	3. Little Talks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky isn't holding up well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Mother's Day!

_Stay off your feet for now._ Fucking hilarious.

Bruce’s internal exam hadn’t been painful at the time, but it apparently confuses the hell out of his body. The cramps remain irregular, but they’re _vicious_. Some are sharp and over in a few seconds, and some stretch on for ten minutes.

Walking helps. Focusing on tasks helps. _Walking_ and _working_ are exactly what Bruce had expressly advised him to _not_ do.

But Lincoln is desperate for breakfast now, and Bucky still hasn’t eaten anything that he’s kept down. So Bucky tries as best he can to balance Bruce’s instructions against his long to-do list and his own desire for distractions: he takes every box of cereal they have out of the cabinets — even the sugar-laden, empty-calorie bullshit that Steve loves, which they keep hidden from their son in favor of calorie-dense granola — and sets them out on the table with two bowls, two spoons, and a full gallon of whole milk.

He’s hoping that Lincoln will be placated by the variety and the uncommon allowance of junk foods, but he only seems confused and overwhelmed. Fortunately, he also eats a huge amount of it, once he gets permission to mix the Cinnamon Toast Crunch together with the Frosted Mini-Wheats.

Bucky gets halfway through a bowl of Lincoln’s granola, and then he has to lay his head on the cool table and wait out an eight minute, gut-wrenching, _‘false’_ contraction.

Lincoln reaches across the table and pats his prosthetic hand ever-so-gently. “Is your cereal hurting your belly?”

“No, baby. I’m fine.”

“Do you wanna make pancakes instead, maybe? I can stir while you do bacon. Like we did that one time. Then you’d have more energy.”

And the way Lincoln asks that would be hilarious any other day — it’s clearly a request, but he’s trying to disguise it as a helpful offer. Bucky wishes the contractions would miraculously stop, so he could make a hot meal for his kid, but it’s not happening. He’s doing all he can not to cuss and groan and cry.

He raises his metal hand slowly and traps Lincoln’s tiny, bony hand underneath it, gripping it as lightly as he can. The pressure sensors in his fingers tell him that Lincoln squeezes back hard.

He should just make the goddamn pancakes.

He should have _begged_ Steve to stay home, not pushed him into _leaving_.

He shouldn’t have overextended himself like this, because now he’s slipping. And he can’t stand letting Lincoln down like this, even when it’s just over pancakes and bacon and he’s making mountains out of molehills, like he always does. Even if it’s just today. “I don’t think I’m up to it right now.”

It takes a couple of seconds, but Lincoln gives him an answer rather than an argument. “That’s okay. I can eat another bowl of cereal.”

 _God, I hate myself_.

* * *

At eleven o’clock, Ruth calls.

Bucky lets the call go to voicemail. She knows he’ll call back in a minute or two — as soon as he can find somewhere to speak in private. Thankfully, Lincoln is preoccupied with his Legos underneath the kitchen table, but his sharp hearing means that Bucky has to take the call outside the apartment. In his oversized shirt and stained sweatpants, with nothing to hide his swollen chest, no desire to put on a tight garment, and no socks or shoes, he sticks his head cautiously out of the door to his quarters and takes a careful survey of the common room before slipping out. He goes all the way to their shared kitchen to put a comfortable distance between himself and his son before he dials Ruth’s number.

“Hi!” Her voice bursts from the other end of the line, sweetened with delight. “Is it a bad time?”

Bucky swallows hard. He never can hear Ruth’s voice without his heart filling up and hurting. He wishes they had more time to spend together. He wishes he could make up for all the time he’s missed. “No, I’m just...it’s not bad yet. Just getting really close.”

“What did Dr. Banner say?”

“Prodromal labor.”

“Are you excited?”

Bucky trips on the question. It surprises him, and so does the little smile that blooms on his face by accident. “Not until you asked. Now...yeah, maybe I am,” he laughs. “Little bit anxious, little depressed, but—”

“Depressed?”

“Probably just hormones. And I’m just...you know. I can’t stay on top of anything.”

“Where’s Steve?”

“Out of town on assignment.”

“Will they let him fly back in?”

“On his way.” Bucky has to take a moment to think about something else. He doesn’t want his voice to break — Ruth always seems to know by his voice when something is bothering him, and he doesn’t like concerning her with his problems. He wants to be there for _her_ — not the other way around. “How are you? How’d your presentation go?”

“Great response from the University — I think I’m going to get all the funding I wanted...maybe a little extra if my next pitch goes well.”

“Where are you speaking?”

“Johns Hopkins.”

“You’re...gonna to be in the States?”

“Yeah. And Baltimore’s only a few hours from New York, and that’s if I don’t catch a flight. I’d really love come to see you guys.”

“Maybe.” He knows Ruth hears the stiffness in his tone.

“You...still haven’t talked to Lincoln about me?” She makes sure to say the words kindly, already full of forgiveness.

“I just haven’t felt ready. I’m so sorry.”

“Hey, remember what I told you — it’s up to you and Steve to decide when he’s ready. You might _never_ want to tell him. And I’m alright with that — really. I will understand. But it _would_ be nice to see you. And I would really like to meet him, too, even if I had to be an ‘old friend’ or something. You’ve got a lot on your plate, right now.”

“We’ll talk to him,” Bucky promises resolutely. “Maybe not today,” he laughs, “but as soon as things calm down. How long have I got until you’re here?”

“Two weeks from yesterday.”

“Okay. I can work with that.”

“I won’t be devastated if you don’t get around to it. You’ve got something much bigger to worry about right now.”

“Yeah. _At least_ ten pounds at my last ultrasound.”

“ _Cállate!_ Jesus, well, best of luck with the delivery. I just bought a pork roast that weighs that much, so I’m very aware of how big that is.”

For the first time that day, Bucky _really_ laughs. It’s like a miracle cure. “Love you, Ruth.”

“Love you. Send me pictures as soon as you can.”

“I will.”

“Bye, dad.”

“Bye—” Bucky replies as quickly as he can, and ends the call before she can hear the shuddering of his chest around an unexpected flood of hot tears.

He is _so_ tired of all this inescapable, unending weepiness — but he knows _that_ would have made him cry on his best day.

Ruth had seemed unsure in the beginning, and then after about two years of stolen visits, there had been a phone call answered with the words, _Hi, dad, how are you?_ It’s not the same way that she refers to Strazds, on the rare occasions she mentions him — they had almost never spoken English to one another, always switching between Spanish when she would start a conversation and Latvian when he would start one. It’s the word she’d chosen only for Bucky. She had said it felt right to her. Most of the time, she doesn’t call him anything, but at the end of each phone call, he knows that word will be there, waiting for him in lieu of an embrace.

All that love and trust and acceptance that she gives him so freely, even in light of their strange, dark, separate histories — and he hasn’t even told her brother she exists. He’s going to make that right.

But maybe not today. He’s just going to get through today.

“Barnes? You alright?”

Bucky doesn’t allow himself to duck under the kitchen counter and hide, like he wants to. He raises his head to acknowledge Natasha, feeling a little mortified to be out in a common area with nothing to bind down the swell of his chest. He knows it won’t offend her — she’d been around a few times back when he was breastfeeding Lincoln and she had taken it all in stride. But it’s the _principle_ of the thing.

He musters a doleful half-smile, which is the best he can do to placate her concerns. “Why? Do I not look alright?”

“You want the truth, or something comforting?”

“Comforting.”

“You look rough.”

“Thank you.”

“Baby about to fall out or something? Should I stand back?”

“She’s about three pounds bigger than Lincoln was. She’s not _falling_ out of anything. Contractions started this morning.”

“Have fun with that.”

“What’re you all suited up for?”

“Taking over Tony’s investigation. He’s on his way back right now, so Itsy Bitsy’s holding down the op until I get out there.”

“What’s Tony doing?”

“Unspecified medical emergency.”

“You’re kidding.” Bucky feels a jolt of worry in his chest, but Natasha doesn’t seem too concerned, and she’s had contact with Tony — it can’t be too bad. Then again, if he’s leaving an op before it’s finished, it can’t be _good._

Natasha shakes her head, implying that she doesn’t have any more information, and starts toward the elevator again. She turns back on her heel, eyes narrowed cautiously. “Weird question.”

“Great.”

“We both hate invasive human contact.”

“Not really a question.”

“Can I touch your belly? I know that’s not kosher to ask pregnant people for that, but I’m a paranoid old Russian auntie and I’m superstitious. Please, just go with it.”

Bucky’s confusion and curiosity unexpectedly outmatch his discomfort. He stands up straight and lifts up the hem of his sweater. Her hands are cool when she touches him — and she’s not touching him with any sort of exploratory intention. It’s more of an easy caress, almost like a pat on the back. It’s not entirely unpleasant, and with the way she smiles — like she’s pleased about something only she knows — it might even be a little comforting.

“There. That’s a big helping of good luck for the two of you, since I’ll be out of town when she gets here. I do a little Good Luck Rub for Laura every time and everything always turns out fine, so, you know. Why not. Maybe it works.”

Bucky struggles for a few seconds to put words to the way that makes him feel, but after he decides that he’s stunned silence has stretched on a little too long, he settles for reaching out to squeeze her shoulder. “Thank you.”

“You got some killer stretch marks there,” she comments suddenly, before the moment can get too emotionally involved.

“Well, we can’t all have perfect bodies, Romanov.”

“Oh, mine’s not perfect,” Natasha assures him quickly, lifting up the bottom of her tac-vest to expose her own stomach. “Look at this gnarly mole I’ve — oh, no wait, that’s where you shot me, isn’t it.”

“Oh, fuck _off_ with that.”

“Not until I get to shoot you back,” she calls over her shoulder, heading for the elevator once again.

“You _did_ shoot me back.”

“Damn, I assumed you’d forgotten that. Thought I might be able to take the lead.”

“Two to one, Romanov. Two to one.”

Around the corner, the elevator chimes, and Bucky hears the door begin to slide shut as Natasha shouts her choice of last words. “Suck my dick, Barnes.” And she’s gone.

* * *

Lincoln apparently hadn’t taken long to notice his absence. He fixes Bucky with a piercing, accusatory stare as soon as he re-enters the apartment.

“Where did you go for so long?”

“To make a phone call. Where the h—” and Bucky bites his tongue. “Where are your pants, Lincoln?”

“Back inside the dryer. ‘Cause they were wet.”

Bucky glances toward the alcove in the hallway, and the silent washer and dryer contained therein. He stares Lincoln down as he turns the dryer back on, hoping the boy will take the fucking hint.

Lincoln is _so_ smart, but if Bucky had a nickel for every time he showed a total deficit of common goddamn sense, his bank account could make T’Challa blush.

Alright. No more housework, no more phone-calls or visits. Bucky’s going to sit still and relax. He’s not going risk breaking his water and bringing labor on before Steve is home.

“Is it time for lunch?” Lincoln asks, at the exact second Bucky settles in on the couch.

“Why not.”

Bucky drags himself back up, and makes sandwiches.

* * *

The smell of bologna and mustard and cheese sets off a bout of nausea that lasts for hours. From eleven thirty until one o’clock, Bucky sits on the toilet with the trash can between his knees, wondering what kind of God would let a man survive the second World War just to die like _this_.

At one o’clock, Lincoln bangs on the door. Bucky is actually surprised at how long he lasted without trying to break it down.

“Papa, your phone is buzzing!”

“Is it a phone call?”

“I think so.”

“Who is it?”

“I don’t know, I left it on the couch!”

“Well, could you go grab it and tell me who it is?”

Lincoln’s feet beat noisily through the apartment as he runs to the living room and back.

“It’s Daddy!”

“Would you _answer_ it?” Bucky pleads urgently.

“It’s not ringing anymore. It says he called eleven times.”

“Why the f—Why did you not — Lincoln, please bring me my phone.”

“I don’t want to come in there! It smells like throw-up!”

Bucky thinks this might be the very first time Lincoln _hasn’t_ wanted to be in the bathroom with him while he’s on the toilet. “Lincoln, just crack the damn door open and hand me my phone.”

“It’s ringing again. It’s still Daddy. I’m gonna tell him you cussed at me.”

“Lincoln, would you just—”

“Hi, Daddy!”

“Hi, baby!” Steve sounds breathless and worried, but delighted nonetheless. “Where’s your Papa? Is he okay?”

“Not really.”

“Lincoln! Stop telling your dad I’m not okay!”

But his voice doesn’t carry to the phone through the bathroom door.

“Where is he?” Steve sounds shaken.

“Lincoln, give me my phone, right now.”

“He won’t come out of the bathroom and he cussed at me. I don’t want to open the door because I think he’s pooping and throwing up at the same time and the smell will get out.”

Bucky can’t really decide how to feel about _that_ betrayal. Part of him is mortified and angry, but after a moment, his shoulders are shaking with uncontrollable laughter and his face and ears are hot from blushing, which only intensifies as he overhears Steve’s panicked tone give way to breathless hysterics. Unfortunately, Bucky thinks he can hear Sam in the background of the call, also laughing. Sam will be dragging him over this for the next ten years.

“Oh, wow,” Steve says once he’s collected himself. Sounds like he just about laughed himself to tears. “Okay, can you just hold your breath long enough to hand him the phone?”

“I guess.”

Oh, he’ll do it when _Steve_ asks. The door cracks open. “Lincoln, take it off video chat, please—” Too late. Lincoln passes the phone in and Bucky snatches it away as quickly as he can and turns off the camera, just as Sam shouting from the pilot’s seat, “Heard you got them pre-labor poops, Barnes!”

“Hi, Steve.”

“Hey, Buck.” Steve is still fighting back giggles. “I am _so_ sorry about that.”

“Please tell me you called me from your phone and not—”

“No, I had that up on the cockpit screen.”

“Oh my God.”

“It’s just me and Sam.”

“Tell Sam to get fucked.”

“How you doin’?”

“Worse than ever.”

“You _have to_ keep your phone with you, I was scared out my mind, Buck.”

“Fuck off, I forgot it and then I couldn’t leave the bathroom.”

“Papa, I heard you say _fuck!_ ”

“Then take your ear off the door, Lincoln!”

“Where are we at?”

Bucky lowers his voice, so that Lincoln won’t hear anything that could potentially tip him off that Bucky is in labor. Bucky doesn’t have the energy to explain it all to him right now. “Water hasn’t broken. Contractions, but not regular. Just pre-labor. But now I got that one thing going on—”

“What thing?”

“The thing where I feel like the baby’s going to fall out if I cough hard enough.”

“Lightening,” Sam provides, a little smugly.

“What about the bleeding?”

“It stopped.”

“What caused it?”

Regrettably, Bucky hesitates before he answers, which gives Sam just enough time to say, “It was hemorrhoids, wasn’t it? It was hemorrhoids and he just doesn’t want to say it.”

Bucky clamps his jaw shut. Arguing will just egg Sam on.

“Sam’s pushing the jet as fast as she’ll go, but the weather’s real rough. Should be there by six.”

Bucky takes a deep breath, fighting back another wave of nausea that swells up with a flood of anxiety. He’ll be alright. “Okay. Love you. Be careful.”

“Love you, too, Buck.”

“I also love you, Barnes.”

Bucky snorts. “Thank you, Sam.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am honestly shocked at the incredible response this story has gotten. It's been so long since I had anything to post, and I was really missing hearing from you guys. Consider my heart thoroughly warmed. <3


	4. Stop the Train

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve will be home soon.

One more round of vomiting, and Bucky’s stomach calms down. He shuts himself in the bedroom to pump again, but before he can sit down, Lincoln is at the door and begging to do something, _anything_ together, and insisting that he’s bored enough that he might _die_.

Bucky tells him to pick out any movie he wants, and they’ll watch it together. Lincoln’s over the moon.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t take him long to decide — he hasn’t watched anything but old _Batman_ cartoons for the past month. Bucky has been hearing the opening theme in his sleep, lately. He has to pump in a hurry, and he doesn’t have time to grab water.

After all the vomiting and diarrhea _and_ pumping, he really should have known to drink some fucking water. He makes it through less than thirty minutes of watching television with his son before the headache hits him like a pair of sledgehammers to both temples.

Lincoln has been chattering through most of the show so far — making sure that Bucky’s watching every once in a while, asking Bucky questions, announcing _Dad could do that,_ every time Batman does something mildly impressive. He’s been fidgeting all over the couch, too, and when he finally _does_ settle down, he snuggles into Bucky’s side with his sharp little chin digging into the sorest part of Bucky’s chest. Bucky doesn’t have the heart to tell him.

Another few minutes pass, and it’s too much.

“Baby, I need you do something for me.”

“Okay.” Lincoln sounds intrigued.

“Do you think you could bring me the water pitcher and one of your shakes?” Bucky figures he could probably use the vitamins and calories, at this point.

“What’s the matter with you?”

“Just a headache. No worries.”

Lincoln runs to the kitchen and brings him the water pitcher, a Boost, a second Boost in a different flavor, his prenatal vitamins, a bottle of Excedrin, a banana, a cold washcloth, and _finally_ a cup, all in separate trips. As an afterthought, he drags in the garbage can from the kitchen. “Just in case you throw up again,” he explains.

“Thanks,” is all Bucky can force out through his clenched teeth. He thinks Lincoln says something else, but he doesn’t quite catch it over the roar of blood rushing in his ears. Sweat beads suddenly on his forehead and his heels dig into the carpet. For a while, he forgets to breathe. Once the transcendent pain lets up, he has a moment of total, light-headed bliss in the absence of agony. _That_ wasn’t ‘false’ anything. That was a serious, extremely real contraction.

Bucky opens his eyes as much as he can, given his blinding headache, and checks the time on his phone. Only ten after two.

* * *

He lasts through one more episode of the cartoon before he has to tell Lincoln to turn it off.

“But I want to know what happens when—”

“Lincoln, now.”

And Lincoln does it, but he also doesn't want to lay snuggled against Bucky's side anymore. He opts to sit on the floor. Bucky’s head is swimming too badly to feel guilty about it, though. His throbbing temples have reached their limit on noisey television. He uses the last of his tolerance for light to text Bruce, _contractions are regular help._

A moment after he sends the text, he _hears_ his son’s stomach growl hungrily. He wants to cry. “Baby, you might be on your own for dinner.”

“But...why?” and now Lincoln doesn't sound mad. He sounds _hurt_ , and that's so much worse. God, he's almost glad the headache had blinded him. He doesn't have to see those big baby blues begging him for _one_ good, nutritious meal that day.

“I’m not feeling too hot.”

“Can I use the stove?”

Bucky wants to say yes, but he knows better. “Please don’t.”

“Can I use the microwave?”

“Don’t put any more silverware in it.”

“What can I microwave?”

“There’s spaghetti and chicken and asparagus from last night.”

“Can I just eat the spaghetti?”

As much as Bucky wants to tell him no, he can’t bring himself to care right now. He doesn’t have the energy to bargain with Lincoln over fucking asparagus. “That’s okay.” And as a meager consolation, he adds, “And there’s ice cream in the freezer.”

“Want me to get you some?”

“No.”

“Can I put _Batman_ back on now?”

“No.”

Bucky barely makes it to the bedroom before the next contraction gets bad.

* * *

Bruce finds him on his knees beside the bed, with his face buried in the covers so that his son won’t overhear all the groaning and swearing.

“Hey, Barnes,” Bruce whispers, shutting the door as softly as he can. “Ooh, you look like you made some progress.”

Bucky can’t currently reply. Even if he could, he wouldn't have anything polite to say to that.

Bruce sits down beside where Bucky has buried his face. “Can you stand up? Okay, that's good. You just keep leaning on the bed. I'm gonna slide your pants down just a little, alright? Not all the way, I just need to get to your low belly.”

Bruce waits until Bucky can manage at least a solid nod in the affirmative before moving his waistband down his hips. He finds the baby's heartbeat with the fetal Doppler in seconds, and even through the worsening discomfort, Bucky feels the same mind-blowing joy as ever. That's always good to hear.

“Hear how it's a little faster than usual?”

“Mmhm.”

“It's ‘cause you're squeezing her so hard,” Bruce chuckles. “Means she's feeling it, too. It's a good thing. Okay, can I check your cervix before this contraction is over?”

“Go,” Bucky replies absently.

“Wanna lie down?”

“Can't move.”

“Okay, that's fine. I'm gonna slide your pants down the rest of the way.”

“Yeah.”

Bucky is lucky he never took to gambling. Judging by the intensity of the contraction and the sheer amount of pressure bearing down on his pelvic floor, he'd lay money on five centimeters dilated. And that's low-balling. This feels like seven or eight. This feels _bad._

“About a centimeter.”

“Fuck you!”

Bruce jumps a little, reasonably shocked by Bucky's outburst. “I thought you wanted this to go slow until Steve got here!”

Bucky slumps down against the mattress, crying because of the pain, crying because he yelled at Banner, and crying because he's ashamed that _one_ centimeter of dilation has put him completely out of action and _Steve still isn't home._ And crying harder because he started crying in the first place.

“I do. I did. I'm really sorry. This is way worse than last time, I don't know why, I'm sorry. Fuck, Banner, I'm really sorry—”

“Hey, hey, just take a deep breath. You're okay.” Banner stands up behind him and drives his hands into the crests of Bucky's pelvis, leaning all his weight into him. It alleviates enough of the pain just long enough for Bucky to get his head on straight. “Remember your last ultrasound? She's a lot bigger than he was. Lincoln was long, but he had a pretty small head,” he laughs. “This little girl, she’s a whopper. You sure you didn't have any late nights with Thor that got out of hand? You can tell me. I'm not here to judge, buddy.”

“That hasn't happened in real life. Just a couple dreams,” Bucky pants, finally allowing himself to laugh, too.

“How exhausted are you? I brought a B12 shot. Already drawn up if you want it.”

Bucky _adores_ Bruce. This pregnancy has been a physical nightmare, and those B12 shots are the only thing that's kept him functioning for months, now. “Oh, God, yes. Maybe it'll give me the energy to pull my pants back up.”

Bruce is already brushing an alcohol swab over his hip. Bucky intentionally tilts his head down to watch him stick the needle in, because he's that eager to not be so goddamn tired. It's almost like watching a pot of coffee brew. “You can probably walk around like normal, if you think it would help,” Bruce decides. “There's no way you could get her out before Steve gets back. Have you told Lincoln what's going on?”

“No.”

“Why? If you don't mind me asking.”

“I don't want him to worry. And it could be awhile. He’s not too patient.”

Bucky makes it through another bad contraction at the edge of the bed, thanks to Bruce's well-honed, marvelously aggressive method of jamming his thumbs into the pressure points just below his pelvis.

But he gets too attached to the relief. It makes it all the more unbearable when Bruce gets a text and packs his things in a hurry.

“Sorry, Barnes, I gotta go take care of something. Call me if anything changes.”

Bucky gives him a thumbs up, but he's worried; that text was probably about Tony. He must have arrived back at the Facility. Bucky wonders if Banner hasn't mentioned it to him because he doesn't want to alert him to any more problems when he's already in labor, but he would really prefer to have an update on the situation. Banner is gone before he can find the words to question him about it.

* * *

The liter of water, the two nutritional supplement shakes, and the banana are a predictably bad combination. Bucky spends another thirty minutes locked in the bathroom.

* * *

He returns to his bedroom afterwards, feeling a creeping sense of suspicion because Lincoln has been quiet for such a long time, and resolves to get himself collected enough to go and spend some time with him before this gets any worse. He turns out all the lights and gets the fan running, and paces and paces, back and forth, in a trance-like state, keeping his hips in constant motion.

The silence gives him time to think.

Today is January 30th. He’s one week away from his February 6th due date. Bruce had told him over and over again that there was no way he’d make it, and still Bucky has prepared himself for another long, uncomfortable wait after the date marked in bright red on the calendar, since Lincoln had been so many days overdue. Looks like Bruce was right, as usual. His daughter has run out of room to grow.

Steve has been on assignment for thirty-four days now. Bucky doesn’t know what he’s out there doing or what kind of danger he may be in every single day, and he tries not to wonder. If he lets himself think about it too much, he’ll be tempted to ask Steve, and Steve will _want_ to tell him. He’s not going to put him that position. Not on what must be a critical operation. Steve’s paternity leave was going to start on December 28th, and he hasn’t gotten a single day of it. The mission _must_ be important, or Steve would never have taken it.

And it’s been _thirty-four_ days since he and Steve have seen one another in person. They’ve talked via cell-phone cameras, but Steve hasn’t been there for the latest growth spurt. Bucky is glad he’s coming home and hopeful that it doesn’t jeopardize his op, but he’s also unbelievably mortified to have gotten _so ridiculously_ _big_ in Steve’s absence. He had laughed aloud yesterday morning when he’d stepped on the scale out of pure shock.

Two hundred and twenty pounds.

Granted, his weight hasn’t always been reliable over the past few years. His files from Hydra had put him at two hundred and eighty pounds. He’d checked a scale at a shopping mall in Romania, almost a year after he had escaped: a hundred and thirty-six kilograms — right around three hundred pounds.

And then Stark had blown his arm off. Two twenty-nine.

In Wakanda, Shuri had replaced the internal components of his prosthetic and regrafted it to his spine, and he’d started eating regular meals again. No more fast food out of restaurant dumpsters. One hundred and seventy-five pounds. Meaning his old prosthetic, including both the internal and external components, had weighed about one hundred and ten pounds. Shuri’s new vibranium prosthetic put him at a feather-light one hundred and eighty.

He wishes he hadn’t bothered to do all the math.

He’s put on _forty pounds._ He’d only gained twenty with Lincoln and he couldn’t have _paid_ Steve to shut up about how big he was.

Bucky decides not to think about his weight any more. His dignity may always take a blow around the end of a pregnancy, but he’s adamantly clinging to the last of his vanity. He’d gotten very attached to his good looks during his twenties. He’s not ready to give up on them yet.

Another pain rolls like a wave through his legs and belly, and he can’t pace anymore. He leans his hands heavily on his knees and lets out one long, slow exhale. He thinks he might be bleeding again. He should probably be wearing a pad or something, but they don’t _make_ pads that fit in men’s underwear, and if an elastic waistband so much as touched him right now, he would set it on fire out of sheer spite. Fuck it. The sweatpants are ruined anyway. They can’t get _more_ ruined.

It’s four o’clock.

Steve should be home soon.

He’s made it through most of the day. He can make it through the rest. He’ll have Steve with him, and the hours will fly by, and then their little girl — _who needs a name_ — will be here.

The contraction intensifies, and he grips the bed’s wooden footboard, praying that it doesn’t splinter in his fingers. He pants harder, swallowing back the tell-tale sounds of distress that he _can’t_ let Lincoln overhear. He almost feels a little relieved, knowing that he can still face down pain and meet it with silence, when he has to.

Outside, the driving, frozen rain dwindles and leaves behind still, opaque white skies. Bucky can hear the powerful hum of the wind that had blown the winter storm in, haunting the acute corners and deep alcoves of the Facility’s architecture with whispers and groans. He listens, even though he _knows_ it’s too familiar. He should shut out that noise, but he’s already let into his head.

The carpeted floor suddenly feels too smooth. Too cold. The bottoms of his feet go numb with the chill of it. The wooden footboard is rust-freckled stainless steel in his hands. Steve is no one and nowhere at all. _Bucky_ is a pair of syllables, nonsensical and meaningless, that dance through his head every now and then, when a room is devoid of light or noise, and his brain idles dumbly.

New York fades into Siberia like a high tide rolling in. The bedroom becomes the old bunker with its creaking hospital bed and single metal cart, left haphazardly in the corner, waiting to be filled with metal and gauze and chemical smells when they decide he should have another bad morning.

If he stays quiet, he can meet this one. He can hold it. Sometimes, the damage they’ve done to his brain makes him so stupid and illogical that he starts to believe he could _keep_ it.

If he’s quiet, they won’t know.

If they don’t know, they won’t come. If they don’t come, they can’t take her.

If they don’t take her, he can keep her.

The threadbare blue and white hospital gown they’d given him is transparent with thin, nervous sweat. He stands with his shaking legs apart to ease the pressure on his hips and back, and viscous, clotted splatters of blood beat out the seconds against the floor like a ticking clock. The hanging lights drone and buzz overhead, angry and wasp-like, and cast the room in piercing white so that the red blood on the floor seems like a little pool of black oil.

If he’s just a little stronger, if he can just force his muscles to bear down and ignore the feeling of his skin tearing like frayed silk, if he can withstand the ache and twist and sting, and the stench, and the buzzing, and the terror, and the endless uncertainty and the unrelenting, dripping cold, then he can get a glimpse of her.

They’ve used him and reshaped him, and for the first time, they’ve made him into something that can _create,_ that can do more than take life without reservation. It’s only fair that he takes this for himself — he’s seen all the corpses, all the dead old rich men, mouths and eyes open wide, black suits fountaining blood from smoking bullet holes. He should be allowed to see her, too.

_How do I know it will be a little girl?_

He wonders fleetingly if this is just a flashback.

_How do I know her name will be Ruth?_

If this has already happened, if _she_ is already _Ruth,_ then maybe everything will be fine. Maybe he can rest. Stop fighting.

_I can already see her._

_I can already hear her voice._

_So why am I still here?_

It doesn’t matter. This is real. There is no future beyond this moment. _To assume inevitable success is to invite defeat._ That’s what Zola had said, once — not to him, but he’d overheard it and remembered it despite a dozen long hours of coursing electricity. Fear wells up in his belly again, and he drops down to his knees, pushes until his vision darkens at the edges. He has to do this. He has to be quiet. He wants to keep her.

If he’s quiet, they can’t take her away.

He hears his own heartbeat thrumming in his ears. Realizes it’s _them_ , beating on the door.

Someone comes into the room, saying something, shouting at him. He pushes harder, feels himself tear, and bears down more. Even if all it will buy him is a single second alone with her, it will be worth it, and he’ll put that one second somewhere safe in his mind and never let it go, no matter how many times they take all the other memories away — he’ll keep this one.

He wants to keep this one. Just this _one._

“Papa, come and see the fort I built. I made it so it has a tower. Papa, c’mere. I wanna show you.”

Lincoln must have been knocking on the hallway door. When Bucky hadn’t answered, he’d come in through the door between their rooms.

Bucky’s eyes refocus on his own hands, still gripping the edge of the bed, white flesh thrown into stark contrast against deep grey vibranium. His eyes shift frantically around the room, confirming the time and location one item at a time: his bed, his clothes, his son, the window, the fan, the crib, the pictures. Outside, the wind is softer and the white sky is falling down in a billion dusty snowflakes, silent and slow in the wake of the storm like gentle ashfall after a blast.

He knows how he must look. He’s afraid. He’s shaking, terrified. Buoying from one plane of reality and another, lost somewhere in the space between them. “Okay, baby,” he replies automatically, hazy and still numb with shock, the sweet words wavering and weak in his throat and dampened in his ears. Too soft for Lincoln to hear as he turns, still smiling, and runs back into his own bedroom and down through the hall. “I’ll be right there.”


	5. Tear Down the Walls

Bucky recovers quickly from the flashback, because he has a son, and he has no other choice. A few years ago, they were daily occurrences — fugues that would put him out for hours. After so long living in the relative safely of Wakanda and the Facility, they manifest only as infrequent nightmares. Once or twice a month, if he’s stressed, he may get one during the day, but he’s learning to cope. There’s no time to be less than functional. Not anymore.

He had known he’d be facing down a mess as soon as Lincoln has said _fort_.

The living room, which Bucky had barely managed to clean through his bout of cramps that morning, is effectively destroyed. Every pillow has been removed from the couch, the chairs from the kitchen counter have been dragged into the open area in front of the television to support the blankets from Lincoln’s bed and every other clean sheet and cover from the linen closet. The armchair is somewhere underneath it all. Bucky can see inside the fort’s afghan-draped entrance just far enough to discern the outline of Lincoln’s huge, mostly-empty plate of leftover spaghetti and a cup of grape juice, neither of which he’s allowed to bring onto the carpet, _much less_ eat directly on the goddamn floor.

 _I can’t clean this shit up a second time. I’m in labor. Not fake labor. Real labor. Do you think we have a housekeeper, kid? Seriously? No._ I’m _the fucking housekeeper, and I quit. Your Dad’s not home, I’m tired, I’m having flashbacks, I’m bleeding all over myself. You don’t even wanna know_ where _I’m bleeding. What the hell were you thinking, Lincoln? You see a clean room in this house_ — _is your first goddamn thought ‘how can I fuck this up’? You’ve got comic books and picture books and movies and toys and Legos that have motors to build robots and cars and you’ve got crayons, markers, paints, clay, glue, glitter, scissors, and a fucking Starkpad full of games. And you choose to play with the fucking_ furniture _. And I’m not supposed to tell you no, because you’re developing all sorts of necessary skill-sets and utilizing your creative little brain and people are_ supposed _to be selfish at your age and I’m supposed to be the selfless one and I know that. And for fuck’s sake, I love you so much and I never want to hurt another person for the rest of my life if I have a choice about it and I would die for you in heartbeat so why, why, why do I still occasionally get this uncontrollable urge to choke the life out of you god that can’t be normal_ —

“It’s a really nice fort, Lincoln. Great tower,” Bucky declares, arranging his face into a broad smile that quickly withers, despite his best efforts to sustain it.

“Get inside it with me, Papa, I need to show you—”

“No, thank you.”

“No, but Papa, I just need to show you—”

“I can see it from here, Lincoln.”

“I made the door bigger just so you could fit through it, too!”

“Alright, time to clean up.”

That stuns Lincoln into silence. And Bucky understands. Really, he does. Lincoln worked very hard on his fort. It had occupied him for several hours, which is a very long time for a five year old to stick with _any_ activity, and it truly does look like it required a great deal of planning and resources. However, it’s blocking access to both the kitchen and the door, and the couch is unusable, and the armchair is holding up the north wing of the structure, and all the blankets need to go back on the bed and into the linen closet, preferably folded. Bucky sets his jaw and steels his resolve, because Lincoln _is_ going to take personal responsibility and help him restore order to the apartment, and there _will_ be tears and begging and deeply hurt feelings. And it will blow over. It’ll be fine.

But Lincoln doesn’t argue or beg. In an interesting turn of events, he opts for passive aggressive, righteously angry, stoically silent martyrdom.

God _damn_ it, he’s becoming a tiny little Steve Fucking Rogers.

And Bucky doesn’t know how he’ll ever be able to handle that. He’s already dreading Lincoln’s reckless teenage years.

Teary-eyed and scowling, Lincoln goes above and beyond with the clean-up efforts, giving Bucky the silent treatment throughout the entire ordeal, except for the several times he takes a blanket in need of folding out of Bucky’s capable hands and painstakingly refolds it on the floor, when he tersely proclaims, “I’ve _got_ it.” He even drags out the step ladder and washes his own dishes, glancing over his shoulder into the living room every so often with narrowed eyes and a deeply furrowed brow, just to remind Bucky that he’s _unhappily_ washing the dishes.

Lincoln’s military efficiency and silence work in Bucky’s favor, and the living room is repaired within the twenty minute gap between contractions. Despite his shitty attitude (which Bucky wishes he could laugh at without making matters worse) Bucky wants to reward him for getting the job done so well and being helpful (however unwillingly).

He beckons Lincoln over for a hug and opens his mouth to offer to get the ice cream out and put _Batman_ back on, but the next contraction comes on suddenly and terribly, so sharp and intense that he lets out a pitiful whimper before he can stop himself. Lincoln stomps over to grudgingly reciprocate the hug only to be met with his papa pitching forward until he’s bent double, shaking hands clutching tightly to his thighs to stay upright.

“Papa?” Lincoln’s anger has evaporated. He sounds _terrified_ , and Bucky practically dissociates in an effort to ignore the pain and put on a brave face for his son. Lincoln doesn’t need to see this. “Is...is the new baby kicking you again?”

“Yeah, baby, I’m okay.” Bucky opts to lie rather than scare Lincoln with the idea of _birth._ He still hasn’t had the nerve to talk to him about the _how_ and the _where_ , and he’s hoping that someone will be available later on to watch Lincoln and keep him distracted so that he won't be around to find out about the gorier, more intimate parts of the process.

“The new baby makes you kind of mean. Like, you get grouchy.”

“Sometimes...new babies do that to people. I'm sorry if I was mean today. I haven't felt so good, buddy.” Bucky doesn't know what else there is to say. Every muscle in his body is rigid with pain as he wills one foot to step in front of the other and carry him to the couch, where he lies down on his back and finally gives up. He can't do anymore.

Steve should be home within the next hour or so. He can make it until then if he stays still and keeps willing himself to breathe slowly.

“The new baby makes you get sick a lot,” Lincoln says, repeating what Bucky has told him so many times.

“Yeah.” He should really tell him he’s in labor. He should have explained _labor_ long before this, because right now he doesn’t have the wherewithal to explain something so complicated in a manner appropriate for five year old ears. Lincoln can definitely see that this is worse than the usual vomiting and cramps. He’s worried. But explaining labor terrifies Bucky — should he mention that it’s usually something that only women can do? Would _not doing that_ be misleading? Would telling him the truth lead to questions about why Bucky _can_ but most other men _can’t_? The inevitable line of questioning leads back to Hydra, just like every question about Bucky’s past, and so far Bucky has managed to raise his boy without ever letting him so much as _overhear_ the _H-_ word.

“When the new baby gets here, it’s going to need to be taken care of all the time, right?” Still cautiously repeating what Bucky has told him. Bucky wishes he’d get to the point.

“Yeah, but it’s going to be fun...and you can help.”

Lincoln pulls a face. He didn’t like that suggestion. Bucky remembers feeling skeptical, too, when _he_ was five years old, back in Shelbyville, Indiana, and his own mother had come out of the bedroom looking tired, passed him Rebecca, and gave him the responsibility of caring for his baby sister while she went back to the farm-work. Obviously, he wasn’t going to do _that_ , but even under those circumstance, Bucky had done fine. And he’d done equally fine when Louise and Mary Ann had come along within the next few years. And laundry was a lot more work, back then.

“Will Dad be home?”

“Yeah, for as long as he can be.”

“And you won’t go to work?”

“Nope, Maria is going to come back and do my job for a little while, since it used to be her job. Remember her?”

“Yeah, Nick Fury is her dad.”

Bucky laughs, even in the midst of the contraction. “He’s not her dad, baby.”

“Then are they married?”

“No, Lincoln.”

“Can I have the hug you were going to give me?”

Bucky’s hormone’s run _wild_ at that. He pulls Lincoln over to him quickly enough that Lincoln won’t see him crying ( _again?_ ) and lets him climb onto the couch beside him. As usual, Lincoln’s chin rests right below the crook of Bucky’s armpit, which is _so_ sore right now, _especially_ on the side where his prosthetic attaches. “Lincoln, you’re killing me,” he groans. “Put your head someplace else.”

“Why?” he giggles. “Because it hurts your boob?”

Bucky reflexively clamps his hand over Lincoln’s mouth. “Who — where did you even hear that word?”

Lincoln is giggling almost too hard to answer. “Daddy said it because I put some things on my eyes one time and he told me not to,” and he can hardly finish his sentence through his laughter, “because they were napkins for your boobs.”

“Yeah, those are called nursing pads,” Bucky sighs. At least Lincoln is keeping him distracted from the pain. “And don’t say ‘boobs.’”

“Daddy said ‘boobs.’”

“I know. You just told me that.”

“So why am I not supposed to say ‘boobs?’”

“You’re just trying to say _boobs_ as many times as you can, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” Lincoln admits, crumpling bonelessly against Bucky’s side and laughing that too-loud, breathless laugh, just like his dad does.

For a few minutes, Bucky’s day is a little brighter. He doesn’t care if Lincoln’s chin is bruising him or that Lincoln’s knees are digging clumsily into his side, and Lincoln doesn’t care that Bucky’s prosthetic makes a hard pillow and that his shirt is damp with sweat. And Lincoln has almost outgrown naps...but not quite.

* * *

Bucky wakes up thirty minutes later, in the middle of a brand new, _exceptionally_ powerful contraction, body on fire and clothing drenched in sweat, suffocating at the bottom of a pile comprised of every blanket from both his own bed and Lincoln’s. Lincoln hadn’t slept for long, apparently. He’s standing directly over him, staring, and wearing fresh clothes from the dryer.

“I got you blankets, since you didn’t feel good.”

“Thank you,” Bucky grits out. Lincoln scampers off to his room again looking pleased with himself, and Bucky kicks the nest of comforters onto the floor in a hurry.

He takes out his phone to see if he’s missed any more calls from Steve, and finds only a text from Bruce.

_Working on a situation with Tony. He is not in immediate danger but i am monitoring closely. Call me if anything changes or contractions get 4-5 min. apart please_

Bucky sighs. These contractions feel about as strong as the ones that he’d had at seven centimeters with Lincoln, and just a few hours ago, he was only at _one fucking centimeter._ And they’re _almost_ regular. For a while, they were fifteen minutes apart, but every now and then he’ll get a twenty minute gap. Twenty-five if he’s resting. And his water still hasn’t broken. Which means this could potentially all turn around and take another couple days. But _God,_ he hopes not, because this hurts _bad and oh for fuck’s sake it’s getting worse._

Lincoln sprints back into the living room with three huge puzzles and the pain seems to flare in response to the mere concept of _one thousand tiny pieces to pick up._

“Papa, do you want to—”

“No, thank you.”

“But—”

“You can do it in your room.”

“I wanted to do it with you.”

“Not right now.”

Lincoln pouts, but he also, miraculously, doesn’t dump the puzzles out on the coffee table anyway. Which is what he’d _usually_ do. He _does_ sit down on the floor and stare longingly at them, though. Bucky’s ears are ringing from the pain in his midsection now, and he can neither offer an apology nor an alternative. Lincoln, on the other hand, is _full_ of alternatives.

“Papa, do you want a snack?”

“Nope.”

“But you barely ate anything today, plus you puked.”

“Don’t feel like eating, honey. Fix yourself a snack if you’re hungry.”

“I just wanted to do something _together._ ”

“I don’t want to right now, Lincoln.”

Lincoln lasts thirty-five seconds until the boredom and impatience overcome him. He takes off like a shot back to his room, and returns with a giant plastic tub full of Legos.

“Papa, we could—”

“No, thanks, sweetheart.” The words come out in a rush, tight and low with warning. Bucky wishes he could feel bad, but all he can wish right now is for Steve to walk through the door. He wants to call Banner or _someone, anyone,_ but with Natasha now gone to cover for Tony, every goddamn Avenger is on an op, and Banner is dealing with some unspecified emergency _involving_ Tony, and even though this so, _so_ uncomfortable, there’s nothing Bruce could do for him at this stage short of babysit his son, and he can’t pull him away from Tony for that.

“Do you want to brush our teeth together?”

 _Why the fuck does this child think_ — _?_ “No, Lincoln.”

“Well, because we didn’t do it together this morning…”

Bucky doesn’t reply. He puts a throw pillow over his head and hopes it will muffle his shallow breaths...and _maybe_ muffle his son’s voice a little, too.

Lincoln pushes his head underneath the pillow. Of course he does. “Papa, do you want me to read a book to you?”

“No.”

So Lincoln shakes him. Bucky gropes blindly for the his hands, and pins them gently to the couch.

“Stop.”

“Papa, come on! Let’s do something. I want to help you feel better.”

Bucky wants to tell him he’s in labor, but _fuck,_ he might not even be _in_ labor. He can’t make a decision right now. Or have a conversation. All he wants right now is to be somewhere cool, dark, and quiet, with no waistband putting pressure on his belly, and no obligation not to groan or cry or swear. He has to tell him something. “Lincoln, I need you to settle down. I think the new baby is going to be here really soon.”

“You’ve been saying that all week.”

“I know.”

“And that’s why you’ve been grumpy all week.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t like it,” he says softly. “I don’t think I’m gonna like the baby.”

Bucky’s been there, but he knows how quickly it will pass. He pats Lincoln’s hands as steadily as he can. “You will, baby, you’ll see.”

“How soon is it going to be here?”

“I don’t know.”

“In an hour?”

“No.”

“So are you sure you don’t want to work one of the puzzles?”

“I don’t want to work a f—no, thanks. Baby, maybe you should go play out in the common room for a while.”

“Okay.”

_Thank God._

“But I just want to make sure you got enough blankets.”

And Lincoln starts piling the comforters on him again, and _Christ_ but Bucky is burning up and barely has the energy to kick them back off. “Lincoln, _please_.”

He doesn’t get an _okay_ this time. Instead, he gets a little frustrated noise, and then the sound of bare feet stomping across the living room floor.

“Papa, you’re being an _asshole_.”

And the door slams.

Bucky clutches the pillow to his face and smiles sadly — because his son is _adorable_ and hilarious, but he’s also hurt and angry, and there’s not much Bucky can do about it right now. He laughs himself to tears. The laughter eventually dissipates, but the tears stick around a little longer.


	6. Trouble Always Comes Round

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve needed some happiness in his life.

_**JANUARY 30, 2023**_

 

Steve doesn’t mind flying. He’s piloted the Quinjet a hundred times. And he’s good at it — not too surprising, since he’s always been a quick study and his reflexes are sharp. The whole flight deck is intuitively designed and he can operate it without looking. He can maneuver comfortably in most situations and under heavy fire, and on the several occasions that the nav computer and AI were damaged mid-op, he had proven the most capable of utilizing aeronautical charts and a compass to steer the jet home. He _enjoys_ flying.

Landing is harder for him.

Sam is the only one he’s told. About the way the descent makes him feel. It’s something about the nose going down, tilting toward the earth, forcefully pressing him into his seat — it always makes Steve think that little rivulets of ice water are trailing through his hair and down the back of his neck. It makes him bite the side of his tongue until it bleeds. Ever since he’d told him, Sam always offers to take the controls when it came time to set the Quinjet down. Steve always turns him down, so Sam comes to stand next to him and somehow exudes calm, talks to him the whole time about something else, makes Steve go through the motions without thinking too hard about them. And Steve does the same for him — puts a hand on his shoulder and jokes around with him when he smells smoke or sees an unexpected flash of fireworks or hears the wind outside making a certain kind of wail.

This time, Steve asks him to land the jet for him. This time, he just can’t do it.

The past month has been bad, and he’s already on edge over the new baby, and there’s so much snow on the ground that the Facility and the surrounding fields and hangars look like a solid expanse of white. Sam nods instantly and takes the controls, like he’d just been waiting for Steve to say the word.

He’s worked difficult operations before; he’s seen death and suffering on monumental scales. He’s been drained and exhausted and heartbroken over hundreds of missions. But this one has left him totally bereft of _feeling._ Stark had brought him the information the day before his paternity leave was scheduled to start and fixed him with a profoundly apologetic stare. Before Stark had even spoken, it was abundantly clear to Steve that whatever he was bringing him, inaction wouldn’t be an option. Steve had to go. So did Tony, and every other Avenger that could be spared. Other operations would have to be put on hold. This would take priority.

The situation wasn’t the deadliest or the most dangerous he’d ever faced — not by a long shot. But there have been days, so many of them that he’s lost count, that he’s missed the gunfire. The aliens. The buildings collapsing in clouds of dust. _Anything_ would have been easier.

* * *

 

**_DECEMBER 27, 2022_ **

 

One of these days, Lincoln is going to sleep through the damn night without turning himself upside down and sideways on his bed. He’s going to wake up with both his socks on, too. Maybe he’ll even make it through whole night without sneaking into the kitchen and getting out the peanut butter. Steve can barely recall the last time he came into Lincoln’s room and didn’t find the jar on the floor by his bed with a spoon sticking out of it, missing its lid. More often than not, there were a few snack items under his pillows, too. Marshmallows, bananas, potato chips, nuts, whatever he could wander into the pantry and grab while still barely awake.

Steve makes an effort to enter Lincoln’s room silently every morning before waking him up for precisely this reason. If he gives his kid some warning, Lincoln will destroy the evidence, and the evidence is unfailingly _hilarious._ But today? Today is the _best_ . The peanut butter is on the floor, as usual. There’s also an empty cereal bowl. And Lincoln has kicked his pillow out of place, exposing two half-eaten, toasted, _buttered_ English muffins.

 _Must be saving those for later,_ Steve thinks, holding his breath so he won’t laugh too loudly and wake his son up. Not until he gets a picture, anyway. He takes out his phone and opens his messages, hoping Lincoln won’t overhear the light patter of his thumbs on the screen. Bucky’s at an appointment with Banner, so he could probably use a pick-me-up right about now.

 

_BUCKY LOOK WHAT YOUR SON DID_

 

**_My feet are IN stir fry what do you want_ **

**_Stirred up_ **

**_Shot_ **

**_STIRRUPS_ **

 

Touch-screens don’t read Bucky’s left thumb at all, and they don’t do such a good job of responding to his right-thumb-only texting method. Bucky hates it and, secretly, Steve often texts rather than calls just to see the typos. He sends him one picture of Lincoln and all the dishes and food containers, and another showing the English muffins and crumb-covered, greasy fitted sheet in greater detail.

 

_HE MADE HIMSELF BREAKFAST IN BED._

 

**_Gross_ **

**_Puts disc golf on that shirt before you waste it_ **

 

Steve grins, replying before Bucky can correct himself. _OK no problem, and I’ll put some dish soap on this sheet before I wash it, too._ He grins from ear to ear, and adds, _How’s that baby girl doing?_

 

 **_Grew A LOT,_ ** Bucky replies a moment later. **_Moving a lot too. Bruce can’t get a good picture._ **

 

 _We’re going to need a crowbar and a plunger to get her out of you,_ Steve types, giggling as he sends it. Bucky probably won’t appreciate the humor, but he’ll get over it.

 

**_Tell L to use a plate please_ **

 

 _But then it wouldn’t be Breakfast in Bed,_ Steve counters and, unsurprisingly, does not receive a response.

Apparently, that’s all the fun Bucky’s willing to have when he’s currently on the exam table. Which is fine, because Steve has another source of fun to occupy his time away from the field, now. Lincoln’s shirt is bunched up around his chest and he’s sprawled out on his back and dead asleep, which leaves his belly completely exposed to attack.

Steve makes his way to the edge of the bed and leans down over his boy with as much caution as he’d use approaching an armed combatant. Then, in a single, quick motion, he grabs him by the waist and blows one hell of a raspberry, right on the center of Lincoln’s bare stomach. It’s a _good_ one, too. Makes a _very_ obnoxious noise. And Lincoln screams like he’s caught his britches on fire and smacks him frantically on the head, then screeches with laughter until Steve runs out of air. The poor kid has practically hyperventilated by the time Steve finally lets him up.

“Dad, you got spit on me!”

“So? What are you gonna do about it? Huh?”

Lincoln gets ahold of Steve’s arm and tries to blow a raspberry of his own, but it’s nowhere near as good as the one Steve had gotten out of him. If the goal is getting more spit on Steve than Steve had gotten on him, though, it’s a solid win for Lincoln.

“Did you make English muffins last night and hide them under your pillow?”

“No,” Lincoln cackles, already well aware he’s been caught.

“That’s weird, I must have dreamed up those English muffins over there.”

“There’s nothing here, Dad!” Lincoln shoots up like a coiled spring and clambers across his bed to grab the cold, soggy, half-eaten muffins. Steve doesn’t stop him. He wants to see if the kid’s actually going to go through with it.

And he does: laughing so hard that Steve worries he might choke, Lincoln stuffs one muffin and then the next into his mouth. Steve watches him ruthlessly until he’s managed to choke down all of it, and by the time he reaches the second muffin, it takes some real perseverance. It’s also funny.

“Gosh, you’re a mess,” Steve finally remarks, acting like he’s surprised. There’s actually nothing that surprises him less than Lincoln eating evidence. That kid would eat expired sushi from a New Jersey gas station and never bat an eye. “What do you _actually_ want for breakfast?”

“Is Papa gonna cook it?”

“No, Papa had to go to a baby appointment.”

“How many appointments does he have to go to before Bruce will give him the baby?”

“He’s growing the baby, Lincoln, you know that.”

“But when will it come out?”

“In February, probably.”

“I don’t want scrambled eggs if Papa doesn’t do it because when you do it they’re kind of runny,” Lincoln explains, like he’s some kind of scrambled egg expert.

Steve’s not even sure why or how scrambled eggs made their way into the conversation if Lincoln didn’t want them in the first place, except to make him feel inferior to Bucky.

“Is it Tuesday?”

“Yup.”

“So it’s Taco Tuesday.”

“That’s what we’re eating for _dinner,_ Lincoln.”

“We could have them two times, though.”

“Let’s think of something else.”

“But that’s the only thing I want, though. Tacos are all I want to eat out of everything in the world.”

Steve sighs. He really should tell him no — but _why?_ He makes a mean taco, and you can’t have eggs and bacon and pancakes for breakfast _every_ day. The idea doesn’t sound too bad to him, either. “Fine. Tacos for breakfast. But if Papa asks, this was your dumb idea, got it?”

“I think that a lot of cheese needs to be on them. I like a _lot_ of cheese.”

Steve gasps, as if Lincoln has just had a real game-changer of an idea. “I like a _lot_ of cheese, too.”

* * *

In the middle of their breakfast of shredded cheese and tacos, eaten at the kitchen counter and not the table, in the midst of all their laughter and messiness and bad behavior and fun, before Lincoln has changed out of his pajamas and before Steve has washed the dishes, a text comes in from Tony. Steve’s phone buzzes against the hard countertop. Lincoln jumps, then laughs at it.

 

**_Got a Big One, Cap._ **

 

And Steve knows exactly what that means.

It means starting his paternity leave late, for one thing. He’s probably not even going to be able to finish the rest of this meal with his son. It means a fight. It’ll mean not seeing Lincoln for a few days. Maybe a few weeks. Maybe Christmas _and_ New Years was a little too much to ask for.

Either that, or he turns the mission down and stays home.

But Tony knows his leave starts tomorrow. He wouldn’t ask at all if it wasn’t absolutely necessary. Trouble that big — there’s always a chance Steve won’t come back to his family.

But if he doesn’t go, there’s a chance that _trouble_ will be what comes back to his family, instead.

When he picks his phone up off the counter to text a reply, it feels as heavy as a cinder-block.

_Understood._

* * *

 

**_JANUARY 30, 2023_ **

 

“Get on up there,” Sam orders firmly, shutting down the Quinjet’s systems as he speaks. “I’ll get this bird put to bed.”

“Thanks, Sam.”

“Goddamn, I’m just glad to be home,” he sighs, and Steve can hear something _broken_ in his voice. Something devastated by the thought of _home_ being temporary.

Vision, Wanda, and Rhodes aren’t going to be able to hold the operation down on their own for long — Steve and Sam have a day or two at most, and then they’ll need to go back. Steve hasn’t allowed himself to think about it. He’ll meet his daughter and inevitably fall in love, and then they’ll have to part ways within hours. It’ll hurt enough when it happens, and it won’t do him any good to start hurting early.

“And if baby girl isn’t going to be here for a minute, go wash your face,” Sam adds. “You look like shit.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“And shave that beard off,” he calls out, as Steve lowers the ramp in the cabin. “I hate it.”

“Bucky likes it.”

“Fuck what he likes,” Sam chuckles. “He looks worse than you do.”

“We can’t all be you, Wilson,” Steve shouts back, finally smiling as he jogs down the jet ramp into the hanger.

Sam leans just past the edge of the Quinjet’s open cabin door. “Hey, I’ve got Slim tonight.”

“You don’t have to—” But Steve turns back, glances over his shoulder, and sees Sam’s face. He’s not just offering. He’s begging. He needs to see his godson just as badly as Steve needs to see his _son._ And maybe, after all they’ve been through this past month, he needs to talk to someone who doesn’t even know what tragedy _is._ He needs to watch cartoons and eat junk food, and make sure that Lincoln is alright. “I’ll tell him you’re on your way.”

* * *

Steve finds Lincoln as soon as the elevator doors open.

All those ugly yellow and grey cushions from the lounge are piled in the center of the common room, balanced on their stiff, leather edges in a square, like a little house with a throw pillow for a roof. There’s no apparent door, so Steve lifts up the throw pillow, careful not to disturb the structure’s delicate symmetry, and finds his boy curled on the floor, long legs tangled against his chest and head cradled by one lanky forearm. He looks sweet and small and safe — not so different from how his sister had looked in the last set of images Bucky had sent him.

Steve leans down and brushes his fingertips across his Lincoln's forehead, shifting a few strands of nearly-blonde waves out of his eyes. His hair used to be chestnut brown. Five summers of crawling, then stumbling, then walking and running on the Facility’s grounds have sun-bleached it. His son looks more like him every day — so much that it frightens Steve sometimes, when he takes the time to study him. If it wasn’t for his impressive gains in height over the past few months, it’d be like looking at himself in ‘25, in the mottled old mirror by his mother’s nightstand.

For however much Lincoln might _look_ like Steve had looked as a child, and whatever fragility he'd inherited, he’s never once been sick. No fevers, no coughs, no aching joints or fluttering heartbeats. Not even a runny nose. Steve sometimes forgets to be thankful for that. He’s never sat by Lincoln’s bedside and cried, like his mother used to do, clutching a cold washcloth in her hands and praying out loud when she thought he’d dozed off.

He hasn’t even had to think about sickness or misery or those kinds of prayers where you come to God afraid, begging for mercy. It took this last assignment to remind him that other families couldn’t afford to forget about those things. He’s so lucky. His family is _so_ lucky. He knows it won’t stay this way forever — a challenge or a crisis or a disaster will come along, and none of them are going to be ready.

One step at a time. There’s a challenge already. The whole team is off-site doing damage control on a massive scale, including most of the medical staff. Banner has stayed on call for Bucky, but Steve and Sam may well be the only help he has during the delivery. But Steve is confident that they can manage: Sam has medical training and can keep an eye on Lincoln; Steve can focus on supporting Bucky; Bucky can focus on getting that _ten pound baby out._

Steve replaces the pillow on Lincoln’s fort in a hurry, before his son can hear his heart pounding like a jackhammer against his breastbone.

The next stretch of hours are going to be hard, no doubt, but he can’t stop grinning. God, he hates the idea of Bucky being in pain, and he shouldn’t be in any frame of mind right now to cope with screaming or crying or blood or agony or tremendous stress, but as his tired legs carry him closer and closer to his quarters, he’s nothing but happy. He’s excited. He’s ready for this. For now, nothing matters but his family, and the rest of the world will just have to get by without him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that Steve and Bucky's reunion had to be delayed another chapter, but the chapter I WAS writing was almost three times the length of every other chapter in this fic. So...here are the first 3000 words of it, restructured to (hopefully) entertain you on their own!


	7. Look What Walked In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve is finally home. Too bad trouble might have followed him right through the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll...edit this later. There will be errors. I apologize. It's 2 in the morning and I couldn't stop writing and I'm very weak-willed so I'm just posting this big unedited thing so here you go, kids.

The jetlag and the exhaustion and the trauma dragging at Steve’s heels evaporates the moment he steps back through the door to his quarters. He practically runs across the threshold, letting his eager legs carry him in just a few long strides through the living room and right to the couch.

Bucky doesn’t even have a chance to sit up before Steve has his arms around him, and neither of them take the time to say hello. They kiss in short bursts of sparking contact, over and over again, until Steve is grinning too broadly to purse his lips.

“Oh my  _ God _ , Steve,” Bucky breathes, like a month of stress and loneliness could bleed out of him in just a few words.

“I’ve gotcha,” Steve assures him, voice gravel-rough and strained from the sheer force of his joy as he helps Bucky sit up. “Where are we at? Are we walking down to medical or we staying here for a while?”

“Yeah, about that,” he groans, probably from frustration, although Steve wouldn’t be too surprised if he was just having trouble standing up, even with the firm assist he’s getting from both of Steve’s arms. Steve  _ cannot _ let himself say anything, but Bucky has gotten very,  _ very _ big. The weight might not show in his face or limbs too much, but his stomach, hips, and chest are unmistakably rounder than when he was pregnant with Lincoln, and  _ shockingly  _ larger since Steve left. He usually doesn’t carry the extra weight quite like a woman would — either he stays a little smaller, or a baby bump just looks smaller on his tall, broad frame. But right now, he’s what Steve might dare to call  _ curvy.  _ Maybe not to his face, though.

“I was only a centimeter dilated last time Bruce checked.  _ One _ fucking centimeter. This is just tough. I don't know why these contractions have hurt so goddamn bad, I mean, maybe I'm just not handling it well, I don't know—”

“Baby, quit that,” Steve admonishes him. “You're not imagining it. You're not handling it badly. It's labor, Bucky, you can't just decide how it ought to feel. If it hurts, it hurts.”

“Jesus Christ,” Bucky smiles, pitching forward into Steve's arms. “I really didn't want to have her before you got home, so I tried not too move around to much and speed it up.”

Steve plants a sympathetic kiss on Bucky's forehead. “That's probably what made it hurt so bad, dumbass.”

“God, you're  _ home _ . Let's break my water. Let's go for a fucking run, Steve, let's go climb stairs. Let's steal a motorcycle and speed through Jersey.”

“ _ Jersey _ ?”

“They got better potholes.”

“Yeah, and she'd bounce right out. My baby won't be born in New Jersey, Buck, I won't have it.”

Bucky laughs over that proclamation until he runs out of energy, and then slumps back over against him, pressing their foreheads together like he can’t be close enough to him. Steve feels the same way. 

“I — oh, shit, I think I gotta sit back down for a second.”

“Light-headed?” Steve asks, gripping Bucky’s arms a little harder, steadying him.

“No, just another contraction — but, God, they’re sharp. With Lincoln, it ached—” he stops for a moment, gasping. “This is — fuck, it’s like a stab wound that’s a few hours old. You know what I’m talking about. Once they start to hurt so bad they just about tickle.”

Steve snorts. “Yeah, I know about that. You sure you don’t want to to just lean on me? Come on — stretch your back out. Might help.”

He guides Bucky’s arms up to rest on his shoulders, and Bucky locks him in a tight hug. Steve sets his feet a little wider, so Bucky can let himself hang there while he supports his weight. The swell of Bucky’s stomach rests indelicately against Steve’s body, feeling solid and real and like a  _ part _ of Bucky himself, but still somehow completely foreign.

Steve gives himself a moment to enjoy the way it feels, to appreciate it for what it  _ is, _ and to be allowed to share this improbable, unbelievable  _ thing _ that’s happened to them. This incredible twist in their lives, this ugly, violent assault on Bucky’s autonomy that he’d chosen to embrace, that he’s transformed into something so unquestionably  _ good _ and  _ right. _

He leans down and presses a hard kiss to the top of Bucky’s head, hoping that Bucky can feel how loved he is. How much he adores him. He sways a little from side to side, trying to sooth away the tension that’s still building in Bucky’s shoulders. “I’m right here, Buck. Just ride it out. Ride it out,” he whispers, almost singing the words. “It’s gonna pass, baby. This is gonna be over before you know it. I got you. Just hold onto me. I’ve got you.”

The cramp lasts three or four minutes — Steve doesn’t really bother to keep track of the duration. By the time he hears that long-awaited sigh of relief, Steve can feel the dampness of sweat soaking through the back of Bucky’s shirt and the warmth of his overheated skin just beneath it.

“Oh, shit,” Bucky groans, sounding oddly delighted, considering his withering voice and his choice of words. “That helped a lot.”

“Well,” Steve says lightly, deliberately letting a little smugness creep into his tone. “This isn’t my first rodeo.”

“There’s a really funny  _ buck _ joke in there somewhere,” Bucky mutters, giggling weakly as he gets his feet back underneath him. “But I’m too fucking tired to make it.”

Steve laughs out loud anyway. “You’re having a baby, so I’ll give you a pass. I’ll just pretend you had a witty comeback.”

“Thanks.”

Bucky keeps a firm hold on Steve’s hands as he lowers himself back down onto the sofa, wiping the perspiration off his face with the sleeve of his shirt. Steve takes a seat on the floor, between Bucky’s knees and reaches out to cup his stomach, pressing his palms into Bucky’s sides, low enough that he knows his little girl has to be  _ right there _ , right in between his hands. He knows he’s got to be grinning like an idiot, dazed and dizzy with wonder, but Bucky will just have to forgive him. It’s been a  _ month. _ He deserves some time to be in awe of all this.

After a few minutes, though, Bucky breaks the spell. “I’m not going to ask you about that op — but is everyone safe? Are you alright?”

Steve has to take a moment before he answers. He needs to say yes, and leave it at that. Tony had stressed that no details of the operation could be shared with anyone who wasn’t currently deployed in the field. And Steve  _ does _ understand why, given that his team is working covertly in hostile territory, fighting against  _ something _ or someone that  _ might _ be able to target them — or anyone else in the world —  _ remotely _ . He just hates keeping secrets from Bucky. But right now, he could use the opportunity to vent. To work through the things he’s seen, to search for answers and solutions that his team has yet to find. But that’s selfish. Bucky needs to be allowed to focus on own problems right now, and not worry about Steve or the team.

“Everyone’s safe,” he promises. “No injuries so far. Me and Sam did a lot of recon a few weeks ago, and now we’re on damage control while Vision and Wanda run a covert investigation. Rhodes is taking care of the relief efforts and diplomacy, and — God, it’s hard to explain. I’m sorry that I can’t tell you anything else. We’re safe, and we’re going to get to the bottom of it.”

Bucky nods, seeming completely satisfied with Steve’s answer. “I trust you.”

“Thanks, Buck.”

“But you really need a shower.”

“ _ Thanks _ , Buck.”

“But don’t shave,” he adds, rubbing his temple sweetly against Steve’s cheek.

“Sam tried to tell me to shave it off.”

“Fuck Sam,” Bucky grins.

* * *

Steve takes a shower that’s long by necessity — it’s been days since he had more than a few minutes to clean up, and he’s spent a good deal of that time in streets and alleys and dusty countrysides.

Once he’s done, he changes into an old pair of jeans and a shirt that's already worn out and stained, and then draws a bath, just in case he can coax Bucky into it. While the water is still running, he calls Bruce.

“Steve?”

“Yeah, I’m back — when do want us down there?”

“Steve, hey, we’ve gotta talk.” Bruce sounds like he’s struggling not to sound frantic. 

“What’s going on?”

“It’s Tony. He pulled himself off his operation. He—he took Parker to investigate those incidents in Jericho—”

“Vermont?”

“Yeah—”

“ _ Fuck,  _ Tony. He said we might have another incident and that he was going to investigate — he didn’t tell me it was in the US, forty miles from  _ the Facility _ .”

“Nat went to take over the investigation, so Parker’s not out there alone. Drivers running off the road, elementary school’s shut down, it’s getting bad.”

“Same way it started in North Korea.”

“Listen, it’s impossible for me to tell right now whether these are just symptoms of problems he was already having — I mean, just  _ seeing _ these situations might have really messed him up—”

Steve has to fight the urge to leave home and jump right back into the field. Whatever this is, it’s getting dangerously close to home, and he can’t let that happen. Vermont is too close. “It’s happening to him, too?”

“I don’t know, Steve. Like I said, this could be the same shit he’s been dealing with for years. If anything is going to make it bad, this operation would do it.”

“But there’s a chance that whoever’s doing this can target an individual.”

“Maybe _ no one’s _ doing this, Steve. This could be a lot worse. This could be communicable.”

“Then get him quarantined.” If Stark has brought whatever this is into the same building as his son and Bucky, Steve might not forgive him

“I  _ did, _ Steve, jeez —  _ I’m _ the fucking doctor who thinks this might be communicable!”

“You still haven’t found anything, though? Nothing off about the blood tests?”

“No, if it’s an infection or a virus or something environmental — a chemical or something — I can’t find it. But these brain scans — Jesus, Steve, he’s lit up like a Christmas tree.”

But he’s stopped listening. He can’t feel his body, everything’s gone numb with panic. How, _how could he have been this fucking careless, this stupid_ — “Do you think — Bruce, could I be carrying this?”

“I — I don’t think so. It looks like everybody generally starts showing symptoms at the same time, even in isolated areas. If you were experiencing symptoms, I’d be worried, but — you’re not, are you?”

“No, nothing.”

“Oh, God. Good.” 

Steve takes a moment and forces himself to unclench his jaw. Take a deep breath. Bruce is doing everything he can do. He needs to trust him, and he needs to shift his own priorities away from the mission for a few hours. There are five Avengers in the field working on this problem, and Bruce is working the case from his lab. They can manage without him until he’s gotten Bucky through this and met his daughter. They’re capable. The success or failure of this operation  _ does not  _ hinge on his presence. He can let go of the fate of the world for a little while.

“Bruce, I hate to ask, but—”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do about delivering this baby.”

And Steve’s jaw is tight again. “So, you’ve had contact with Tony?”

“I wore a suit, but we don’t know what this is. If it  _ can _ pass from person to person, I still don’t know  _ how _ it’s getting passed. The maps Vision sent me don’t indicate that this spreads anything like a disease, but it doesn’t spread like something airborne, either. It’s fast, and it’s random as far as I can tell, but once it hits a building or a household, it hits the whole fucking place in just a few hours.”

“But you’re not showing any symptoms? What about the staff?”

“No, nothing, not yet anyway, and I sent the staff home before Tony got back here. My lab’s down to a skeleton crew and we’re all working on this — everybody’s monitoring everybody else. But Steve, listen — I don’t want to risk it. Even though I'm not showing symptoms, if this hits me...if there’s  _ any _ chance that this could get passed to me, I’d go green in a heartbeat. I—I can’t—I don’t want to be around Barnes or Lincoln if that—”

“I know, I know.” Steve swallows. “It’s okay, Bruce. I think that’s the right call. You guys didn’t take Tony to medical, did you?”

“No, no, I’ve got him in my lab. He’s in my little Hulk enclosure, so medical’s not contaminated.”

“Okay,” Steve says, trying to sound resolute. “I think we should quarantine the whole building. Don’t let anybody else in or out.”

“That’s the right call,” Bruce agrees. “What are we going to do about Bucky? My whole staff’s had just as much exposure to this as I have, and they don’t even know the case.”

“Sam and I can handle it. We’ll call you if anything out of the ordinary happens.”

“I’m so sorry, Steve.”

“It’s...it’s what we’ve been handed,” he sighs, shutting off the bathwater and lowering his voice. “That modified version of Friday that you and Tony uploaded into the delivery room—”

“Yeah, she knows just about everything your average American OB/GYN knows. She’ll monitor him for you. And Wilson’s a trained paramedic, I’m sure he’s dealt with similar stuff.”

“Okay,” Steve says, nodding for his own benefit, to give some false sense of confidence to his voice. “I’ll handle it.”

“I’m going to get this figured out, Rogers. I promise.”

“I know you will, Bruce” Steve sighs. “Thanks. And good luck.”

He ends the call. He stands up. Rubs the exhaustion and ache out of his eyes.

Dealing with a crisis is nothing new, God knows, but he’s  _ tired. _

Steve tucks his phone back into his pocket and opens the bathroom door, shouting toward the living room, “Hey, baby, do you want to try—”

Bucky is leaning against the wall, just outside the bathroom. He looks guilty — won’t look Steve in the eye — but his shoulders are also rigid with anxiety. He must have been listening for a while. Steve hangs his head and lets a frustrated breath escape his throat like pent-up steam out of a boiler.

He was going to have to tell him, eventually. Bucky would have just ended up asking, when Bruce didn’t show up. But Steve could have used a few more hours to make peace with the whole goddamn  _ situation _ . He isn’t ready to talk about it right now. He’s still too scared, too scattered. He hasn’t had time to process the all this new information, to come up with a solid plan or the right words and reasons to share with Bucky. At least all of that’s off his agenda, now. He’s going to have to meet this conversation head-on.

“Look, I’m trying to be a good army wife, here, Steve...not ask too many questions,” Bucky mumbles, wearing something like a smile and laughing, but somehow only showing shame and fear in his expression. “But this sounds bad.”

Steve bites his tongue for a moment. If he’s going to disregard a dozen people’s orders and talk to Bucky about this, he’s going to do it calmly, honestly, and concisely. He can’t let the terror he’s feeling bleed into it. He keeps his voice flat and low, so that it can’t waver. “Do you want me to tell you, or would you rather not know?”

For once, Bucky takes his time. Really thinks about it before he decides. “Tell me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Commenters that point out my typos so I don't have to look as hard for them tomorrow night will receive a digital hug. Thank you.


	8. Stress Test

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky finally gets some answers.

Steve tries to decide where to begin. The silence between them lengthens as they stand, unmoving, Bucky leaning against the wall in the hallway while Steve’s silhouette fills the bathroom door. Steve’s shadow reaches across the width of the hall, blocking the soft light from the bathroom counter from reaching half of Bucky’s face.

He looks scared. He looks like this is the bad news he’s been waiting to hear for months. With the lives they lead, it seems like there’s always another shoe waiting to drop. His usual stoicism has a crack in it, and the longer Steve stares at him, the more he sees beyond that facade. Bucky isn’t a part of this mission — he can’t approach this as the logical, determined soldier and Avenger that he is, the way Steve has been forced to approach it. Right now, he’s a partner, waiting and worrying at home for his other half to call, and he’s a parent who needs to know how to protect his child. His _children._

And Steve wants to give him assurance. Steve wants him to feel safe — that’s exactly why he took the mission: because the kind of trouble the Avengers risk their lives against is the kind that spreads, the kind that, if left unchecked, can make the whole world unsafe.

The information Steve has to impart isn’t going to make Bucky feel better — it’s terrifying. If he’s going to tell him, he needs to do it calmly and spare Bucky the worst of the details. He can’t let his own fear creep in. But he knows that once he starts talking about his past month in the field, everything’s going to spill out fast and messy — vivid images, horror, hopelessness — unless he can somehow disconnect from his personal investment in all of it. That wouldn’t be hard in a normal debriefing, but he can’t _be_ emotionless around Bucky. Bucky is the only one he can be really, truly honest with. He needs that right now. He doesn’t want to carry all of this alone. But Bucky’s carrying enough.

Steve finds some resolution. He takes his hands off his hips and rolls his shoulders to force them to relax, raises his head, and reaches across the hall to take Bucky by the hand and pull him close, cradling the small of his back lovingly. “Let’s try sitting in the tub for a while, see if those contractions speed up on their own.”

Bucky remains still for several seconds, eyes fixed on something invisible in the air, as if he’s following the threads of every possible outcome his fear has laid before him. Then, letting his eyes fall shut, he seems to give up on untangling the threads and relents to Steve’s bracing hold on him. The rigid line of his body melts against Steve’s shoulder and chest as he breathes out, and Steve tilts his head to kiss his temple — a reward for finally abandoning the whole futile endeavor. “Might as well,” he says.

“Come on,” Steve whispers, lifting the hem of Bucky’s shirt over his head, barely relinquishing an inch of their closeness. Then, even though he knows he shouldn’t risk dealing another blow to Bucky’s poor beleaguered pride, he takes a step back and gets a good look at him. Bucky — as expected — cringes, shifting like he wants to escape Steve’s gaze, and reaches out to get his shirt out of Steve’s hand, probably hoping to clutch it to his chest. Steve throws it defiantly into the hamper.

With both hands now free, he can cup the side of Bucky’s belly in his left palm and lightly, gently brush the knuckles of his right hand down the dark, stretched line that spans from Bucky’s sternum down to his pelvic bone. He runs his thumb over Bucky’s navel, which has turned itself inside out under the stress of the last nine months. Their eyes meet briefly, and they share a little laugh about it.

His hand trails up along Bucky’s side, testing the waters as his fingers come closer and closer to his swollen chest. Bucky isn’t always comfortable with being touched there. He’s not always ready. So Steve goes slow. He rubs the heel of his hand along Bucky’s ribs first, then underneath, then up along the juncture of chest and shoulder, and then watches Bucky’s expression as he works his way lower. But he doesn’t meet any of the usual resistance. Bucky falls back heavily against the doorframe, brow furrowed, eyes squeezed shut, lips parted, and allows himself to enjoy the momentary reprieve from the ache in his sides and breasts. Steve keeps going for as long as he’ll let him, thanking God for his hands that never seem to get tired.

“Getting bad again,” Bucky informs him, voice tight.

Steve lends his shoulder to lean on as he struggles out of his sweatpants, adds them to the overflowing hamper, and takes Bucky’s underwear and runs some cold water from the sink over the bloodstains, scrubbing absently at the red patches with his thumb. He doesn’t think twice about it until Bucky tries to take over the task, stuttering, “God, I’m sorry, you don’t have to—”

Steve shoulders him away, smiling. “Lemme do it, Buck. Christ, you think I’m scared of this? I washed way worse in basic.”

“Steve, it’s—”

“I know where it came from. I’m familiar with the place,” he chuckles. “Look, I got you pregnant and then left for a month. Just let me wash out your dirty laundry. Makes me feel better.”

Finally, Bucky’s shoulders relax, and he relents with a funny sort of half-smile. “Whatever you say.”

Steve helps him into the tub and sits down on the edge, trailing his hand in the warm water until he settles on rubbing out the tension in Bucky’s thighs, kneading the muscles until his legs fall to the sides, opening out his pelvis. Thankfully, Bucky seems comfortable with it — he might even be feeling a little better. Steve can hear his breathing getting slower as he sinks down into the water.

“The Facility’s been placed under quarantine,” Steve begins reluctantly.

Bucky sits up instantly, splashing water out onto the tile. “I gotta go get Lincoln, he’s—”

Steve lays a hand on his shoulder to stop him, coaxing his back into the warm water. “Hey, it’s okay, he’s fine. He’s sleeping in the common room, and he doesn’t have access codes for the stairs or the elevator, Buck. He’s alright.” Bucky settles back down, but he doesn’t look too happy about it. “The quarantine’s just a precaution. Tony might have been exposed to some kind of contaminate in the field. Bruce has him isolated in his lab, in the Green House. Medical floor’s not contaminated. Everything above level two should be safe.”

Bucky’s nerves are more solid the moment he has a little information. He must have been imagining much worse. He closes his eyes, his limbs begin to lose their tension, and his breathing returns to a calm, even rhythm. “Does this have anything to do with the op you were on?”

“Yeah. We think it might.” Steve holds Bucky’s gaze, feeling a frown form on his own face as he sorts out his thoughts. Bucky meets that frown with nothing but serene stillness and an unshakeable peace. He must be able to see how scared Steve is, he must _know_ that steadiness and composure is what Steve needs to see right now, and Steve hates that he’s asking that of him right now, even if the request goes unspoken. “I was in North Korea.”

Bucky flinches, sending ripples through the still bathwater, and Steve grips his knee, wondering if he shouldn’t have told him after all. But Bucky shakes his head when Steve falls silent, reaching out to take his hand reassuringly. “No, no, go on — I’m just — it’s just some back pain. Listening to you talk helps.”

“Okay. Stop me whenever you need to,” Steve reminds him, kneading the muscles of Bucky’s hips and thighs with a little more force and precision. “The North Korean government contacted Stark on Christmas. When this first started, they thought they were dealing with another suicide epidemic. That region’s had a few of them. They shut down all media coverage about it pretty thoroughly — people hear about that stuff, it can make it spread faster. But...this was more complicated. People who’d never had problems before were suddenly so unstable they had to be institutionalized. Panic, aggression, hostility, anxiety, depression, flashbacks — across every single demographic. And it happened everywhere. Didn’t spread like a pathogen would. It _looked_ random, but when it hit one member of a household, it would hit everybody else within a few hours.”

“Steve, have you called—”

“I contacted Cho. She’s okay,” Steve promises. “That...that’s actually part of what makes this so complicated. This never crossed the border. Not one case that we can verify along the Chinese border, none in Khasan, and Wanda did a pretty thorough investigation of everyone running contraband. None of them were affected.”

“How big is this? They would wouldn’t call in the Avengers for a couple thousand cases.”

Steve watches the water’s surface rock itself back to stillness against Bucky’s skin. “Four million with symptoms when we got there. Reports put it at just over twelve million last week. And the symptoms almost always got worse. Somebody that started out depressed...they’d be dead in a few weeks. The ones that were violent — they seemed to do better. Some of them improved. But the ones who stopped going to work or who lived alone, the ones who didn’t have anybody...they went pretty fast.”

Steve can hear his own voice getting lower, weaker, starting to buckle under the knot of grief settling in his throat. Bucky brushes his thumb across Steve’s knuckles, trying — even while riding out a contraction that’s making his breaths shallow — to comfort him and support him. Steve ducks his head, embarrassed, and inhales sharply through his nose.

“You okay?”

Steve is nodding adamantly before Bucky can finish asking. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay. Saw a lot of...it was a tough investigation.”

“You care about ‘em, Steve. That’s why you’re good at this. But it makes it harder,” Bucky reminds him, gripping his wrist. Steve smiles, thankful for the reassurance and still wishing — like he does every now and then, when he starts feeling heavy and tired — that it wasn’t so true.

“The North Koreans — the government’s kept this quiet so far, but there’s no way they can keep it from getting out. I think they reached out to Tony because they wanted some kind of evidence that they weren’t behind this.”

“Do you think they are?” Bucky gets the words out, but his voice is thin and strained by the force of the contraction. Steve moves his hand to the underside of Bucky’s belly, pressing gently as if physical contact and a little prayer could make the pain any easier.

“We investigated them. Between the gag order they gave us and the fact that our contractors were our prime suspects, it all had to be covert. If they had been the ones doing all this, if they’d been testing a chemical weapon on their own citizens, and this was preparation for an attack on another country, a leak would have just moved their timetable up.”

“So you don’t think it was them.”

“The government got hit just about as hard as anyone else. The army suffered the most casualties. I don’t think they’d cripple themselves like that. They’re all sure it’s the US government.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me, either,” Bucky rasps, leaning into Steve’s hand, body tensing as the contraction peaks. Finally, his head falls back against the side of the tub and his eyes open, and he takes the first round of full breaths he’s had in a while.

“I think that’s why they circumvented the international community and came straight to the Avengers. Seemed plausible to Tony, too. That’s why he came back. We still didn’t have any solid answers from the operation in Korea. All we could do was provide aid, when they’d let us. And then...God, I can’t explain it, but everyone started getting better.”

That gets Bucky’s full attention. He sits up a little, shifting away from Steve’s hand and stretching out his legs. “And you still don’t know what made them all sick?”

“No. Two days ago, everyone who was hospitalized, all the people that had locked themselves in their houses, the violent ones they threw in detention centers...everyone showed improvement. Tony was ready to call in Strange.”

“That desperate, huh?” Bucky comments flatly.

“That’s...there’s more. It’s happening here. Stateside.”

“Where?”

“Town in Vermont. Jericho. Started the same day it stopped in North Korea, follows the same pattern.”

A muscle in Bucky’s jaw tightens and flares, but his voice remains steady. “That’s close.”

“Tony took Parker to check it out. Contacted Strange and everyone else he knows, too. ANd he’s got Selvig working on a way to get a message to Thor — I guess he’s thinking this could be Loki again, but—”

“So the town in Vermont — that why we’re under quarantine?”

“No,” Steve replies a moment later, finding himself suddenly unable to look at anything but the water droplets freckling the rim of the tub. “No, we’re under quarantine because Tony starting showing symptoms. I — I’m sure he didn’t mean to bring it back here, Buck, but listen, whatever this thing is...he probably wasn’t thinking too clearly.”

Steve doesn’t think he imagines the shade of color Bucky loses. “I — yeah. I saw Nat leaving to go take over his op, but I just didn’t connect — goddamnit, I’m so out of the fucking loop on this—”

“We wanted to keep it that way,” Steve laughs ruefully. “This is _not_ the time for you to be worried about this bullshit, Bucky.”

“Wish I could’ve helped out,” he sighs, mechanical fingers scraping nervously against the metal pad of his thumb. “Hard not to feel a little useless right now — especially with Tony out of commission.”

Steve bites his tongue and doesn’t bother refuting that complaint with the abundantly obvious facts. Bucky knows as well as he does that going out in the field was out of the question. He just needs to get the guilt off his chest, and Steve needs to let him do it.

“No one else on the team, though? Just Tony.”

“Nobody. Bruce is monitoring him right now, but since we don’t know how this gets passed along — Bruce doesn’t want to be around you or Lincoln or the new baby until we know he’s in the clear.”

“But you’ve had more exposure to it than he has, why—?”

“Because if I start showing symptoms, I’d get depressed. Or maybe I’d have a flashback. But there would be warning signs. It comes on over the course of a couple hours — I know what to look for and so does Sam. I’d be able to isolate myself before it got bad. With Bruce, though...we don’t know how it would affect him. He could be fine one minute and then have an episode.”

“I...I might be a problem, too.”

Steve forces his way past a moment of hesitance and heartbreak, and makes himself answer honestly. He’s given a lot of thought to what this might do to Bucky, if it reached him. “I know. But everything we know so far indicates that this is only affecting certain geographic locations. I don’t think you’re at risk.”

“I had a flashback this morning,” Bucky admits, like he’s confessing to a murder.

Steve grips Bucky’s thigh, meeting his eyes. “But...you recovered? You’re alright now?”

“Yeah, it was just one.”

Steve lets out a ragged breath and slumps forward. “I think that’s just stress, Buck. Might just have been the pain. Look, once this starts, it doesn’t slow down. It got worse and worse across the board until the whole population started recovering all at once. I don’t know what this is, but if you had it this morning, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.”

Bucky nods, studying the nearly-still water around him, as if he’s undertaken a moment of deep introspection, gauging his own state of mind until he can draw a truly confident conclusion. “Yeah, I’m alright.”

“Let me know if that changes.”

“Yeah,” Bucky scoffs. “I’ll let you know if I start to feel anxious or panicked while I’m pushing this baby out.”

“Just...keep me updated. Look, I know this seems bad — like maybe we’ve got another fight on our doorstep, here. Maybe it is that bad. Maybe we do. But right now, this baby’s our only job. We got the whole team on this case and we’re not gonna do them any good by worrying. This is my only priority right now,” he promises, glancing down to the swell of Bucky’s stomach. “Sam and I are gonna get you through this.”

“I know you will. And, listen, I’m really am okay,” Bucky smiles, and reaches down to squeeze his hand again, with that same, bracing, steady strength. “I’m not worried about labor a bit. I’d put up with every violation of the Geneva convention you could throw at me to get this goddamn pregnancy over with.”

Steve laughs, shaking his head, finally feeling a sense of happiness and mirth accompanying the smile on his face as the tension between them shatters. “You sure did get hit with the nausea this time around, huh?”

“God, is that how you used to feel on car rides?”

“Yeah, and _rollercoasters._ You know what, I’m glad you spent a couple months with your head in the garbage can, serves you right.”

“It’s been eighty-nine fucking years, Steve, stop being a prick.”

“Not to mention you lost your _mind_ — two months straight, you woke me up every night because you _couldn’t_ stop dreaming about eating something you’re not supposed to eat.”

“Pencils.”

“Dry cornstarch—”

“Chapstick—”

“ _Styrofoam_ — Christ, this one’s been weird.” Steve lets himself slide off the edge of the tub to sit down on the tile floor, boneless with laughter and exhaustion.

“About to get weirder,” Bucky remarks ominously.

“Weirder how?”

“I still haven’t told Lincoln how — how this _works_. It’s just you and me and Sam, and the Facility’s quarantined. He’s gonna _have_ to stay with us, Steve.”

“Oh man,” Steve groans, laying his forehead against the cool, damp side of the bathtub. “Oh, boy.”

“I’m gonna be busy. You’re answering all his questions.”

“I think I’d rather have the baby.”

“Get yourself a fancy Hydra surgery and I’ll answer the questions next time.”

“You don’t want me to do that, Buck.”

“The hell I don’t.”

“I’d fuckin’ glow, buddy. You’d die of shame.”

“You’d be a mess and you know it.”

“Bet I’d still have ankles.” When the lukewarm bathwater hits Steve’s face — a small amount, but well-aimed — he can only nod in affirmation as he wipes it out of his eyes. “I earned that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was...a lot of exposition to get out of the way. Well, on with the story!


	9. Coming to You Live in Tunnel Vision

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Star Spangled Man with absolutely no plan at all and also a lot of anxiety. But good friends and family who are there to help him through it.

A few minutes after the end of a contraction, Bucky hauls himself out of the bath and redresses. Steve gives him more help than he needs, but he’s missed him too badly to care if he’s hovering or nagging. Steve can’t seem to keep his hands off him, and for once, Bucky lets himself be cared for without argument.

Steve leaves the door to the apartment standing open so that Sam can let himself in, and because it gives him a direct eyeline to Lincoln’s little pillow-house out in the common room. He can see that Lincoln hasn’t abandoned it — one bare foot is sticking out of a gap between the cushions, shifting sleepily every now and then as he naps on the hard floor. Steve desperately wants to go wake him up, to surprise him with hugs and kisses and hold him until Lincoln has to beg him to stop squeezing him, but they’re going to have a long, late night ahead of them. Might as well let him sleep as long as he can.

Bucky has shut himself in the bedroom to pump again when Sam arrives. Steve’s already exchanged a dozen texts with him to update him on the rapidly changing situation — Sam had only requested a few minutes to shower and eat something in his own quarters, and then he would be with them straight on through until — _Steve’s heart flutters like it hasn’t fluttered since he’d had palpitations_ — until his daughter is born.

Forty-five minutes after their conversation ends, Sam shows up in the doorway, looking like he’s had a full night’s sleep and three square meals. Steve can’t guess where he’s finding the reserves of energy to tap. He hasn’t seen Sharon in weeks, they’re facing a quarantine at the Facility, and he’d undertaken the same grueling schedule as Steve for the past month, and he doesn’t have Steve’s enhancements, and yet, there he is — wide-eyed and grinning like someone’s just handed him a puppy.

“Baby time!” he announces in a mock whisper, as loudly as he can without startling his sleeping godson in the common room.

“Jeez, Sam, how are you not—”

“ _Baby time_ , not _tired_ time.”

“Did Banner explain—”

“Not _mission_ time. Not _quarantine_ time. It’s _baby time_ , buddy. Are you ready for this?”

Steve had expected a tense, serious conversation, full of apprehension, but Sam won’t allow it. Despite his best efforts to give their predicament the exigence it’s due, he finds himself smiling right along with his friend. “What got into you?” he chuckles.

“Nothing got into me. You got something into Bucky, though, and I heard I’m supposed to get it out, now? Did I read that correctly?”

“It’s you and me, pal,” Steve sighs. “We can’t leave the Facility and we can’t let anybody else in. All the medical staff is running support for the team in North Korea or working on Stark, and Banner doesn’t want to risk putting himself under too much stress when he might have been exposed. So. I guess we’re going to have to figure out how to deliver a baby.”

Sam scoffs, throwing his hands blithely in the air, apparently completely undaunted. “I’m fine, Steve. I was an EMT and a paramedic before I got into the high-tech pararescue business.”

“This is a little different from what you’ve been trained on, Sam.”

“No problem. He’s having a baby and he’s got a dick — if that’s what you wanna call a dick. I was there last time, anyway. I feel pretty good.”

Bucky must have overheard Sam flinging insults. The bedroom door creaks open and a few seconds later, there’s Bucky with a smile on his face. You’d think he _liked_ all the abuse.

“Holy shit!” Sam laughs, applauding in awe. “Holy _fuck,_ Barnes. Steve look at this guy — he’s fat as butter. I was gonna ask where my godson was at, but now I can see that you ate him.”

“Why can’t you just be nice for once,” Bucky sighs lovingly as he and Sam share an easy handshake.

“I’m not being mean, all I’m saying is you got really, _very_ , extremely fat, and I think you look hilarious.” Sam wraps his arms around Bucky’s waist, making it perfectly clear that he’s hugging Bucky’s belly and pointedly disregarding Bucky himself. “Hello, there, baby princess. How’s my little angel been? You better come on out and meet your Uncle Sam, because let me tell you something — you only know one person so far, and he’s a fucking loser. It’s time for you to ditch him and come hang out with me, little girl.”

“Great bedside manner, Wilson,” Bucky comments, patting Sam’s back. Steve can’t tell if the gesture is friendly, or if he’s just slapping him until the hugging stops.

“World’s best amateur obstetrician,” Sam declares with a shrug, and then his voice suddenly softens as he takes in the flush on Bucky’s face and his uneasy, shifting stance. “Okay, but really — when was the last time Banner checked your cervix?”

“Almost five hours ago.”

“Jesus, Barnes—”

“No, it’s not — I was only a centimeter dilated. They’re still ten or twelve minutes apart.”

“I was about to go grab the baseball glove and get ready to catch. Don’t do that to me. About how long since your last one stopped?”

“Probably three minutes. I was still in the middle of it when you started talking shit about me, or I’d have been out here sooner.”

“Cool — I brought the med kit from the jet in with me when I heard Banner’d shut down the first floor. I’ve got gloves and some other shit in there — are you alright with me doing an exam?” he asks, making the question slow and clear, meeting Bucky’s gaze steadily.

Bucky spends a moment that feels offensively long to Steve looking at Sam, then over to him, then back to Sam, then settling decidedly on him with disbelief. “Oh God.”

_Come on, Buck, really?_

“You guys are gonna try to deliver this baby, aren’t you?”

“Buck, I’m sorry — I told you—”

“No, no, you did tell me. I know,” Bucky says, with a smile that’s stiff with panic. “Just didn’t really hit me until now.”

“Barnes, look, I know we’re not as good as Cho or Banner, but I’ve got a couple years of—”

“No, I’m not worried about _you_ , Wilson, you’re fine,” Bucky huffs. “Just don’t leave Steve on his own.”

“Bucky, what the hell!”

“You get woozy every time you see blood that’s not yours, Steve. Remember that assignment in Pravda last year?”

“Stop bringing that up!”

Sam puts his hand up. “No, bring it up, what happened?”

“I dislocated my knee—”

_“Really badly.”_

“—and I told Steve how to reset it—”

“Which I did. I got it reset, Bucky.”

“He threw up in my lap.”

Sam has to lean back with the force of his laughter. “See that’s the problem with you super soldiers: you never end up in the medic’s tent. I have run that motherfucker — dislocated knees and babies coming out of the wrong hole got nothing on Shawali Kowt.”

Bucky tips his head inquisitively. “2001? Early December?”

“December 2nd.”

“Hey,” he laughs, like he’s just discovered a pleasant little coincidence. “I was only about thirty miles away from you.”

“Kandahar?”

“Yeah.”

“What were doing there?”

“Trying to kill Nat, probably.”

Sam snorts. “You should have called, we could have met for coffee.”

Steve waves his hands, frantically trying to halt the conversation before it gets away from him any more. “Wait — wait a minute — babies coming out of the — what kinda stuff did you _see_ over there, Sam?”

“Same shit you saw at Monte Cassino, but less mud, more dust.”

Steve cringes. “Jesus.” He supposes it’s only fair that he feels left out when Sam and Bucky start swapping stories from Afghanistan. Sam feels the same way when he and Bucky talk about the European theater, and Bucky still doesn’t believe half of what he’s heard about Sokovia.

Bucky leans forward, apparently gripped by an urgent need to stretch his legs and back, and he sighs through pursed lips. Steve sees a familiar frown line appearing on his brow — one that almost always means back pain. “Wilson,” he rasps out. “If you want to check my cervix during a contraction, you’ve got about a two-minute window.”

“On it.” Sam shoulders the bag he’d brought from the Quinjet’s medbay and lays a hand on Bucky’s back, ushering him toward the bedroom with a demeanor that’s suddenly both professionally efficient and surprisingly gentle. Steve follows behind them, cutting through Lincoln’s room to reach the bedroom first, clear the clothes off the bed, and spread out the towels Bucky’s already bled on.

Steve sits down on the edge of the bed, lending Bucky his shoulder to lean on as he steps out of his sweatpants, while Sam dons a pair of gloves and lubricates them.

“How do you want to do this? Do you want to lay on your side and let Steve hold your knee?”

Bucky nods, and Steve follows Sam’s instructions, fitting his palm into the crook of Bucky’s knee to tuck it toward his chest. Sam moves briskly and carefully, like he hasn’t lost a bit of the quick aptitude he’d undoubtedly relied on as a paramedic. If Bucky is uncomfortable with the invasion or Sam’s forward approach, he doesn’t show it — his chin drops to his chest and he breathes out as Sam presses in, then set a rhythm of slow, deep inhales while Sam tries to instantly familiarize himself with physiology he’s never encountered. The normal position of Bucky’s cervix, by Zola and Strazds’ careful design, is essentially inside out — extending shallowly inward toward his uterus to prevent infection. The pressure of labor could force it to right itself and turn outward, but until that happened, Sam probably couldn’t gauge much of anything.

“Okay, Barnes, I know I’m all over the place here,” he laughs. “I’m figuring it out — you feel where I’m pressing right now? Anterior wall, up toward your bladder? Feel the same as when Banner does this?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. I don’t know how he figures out the dilation before your cervix turns around, but it’s definitely thin and soft.”

“He—fuck, _ah,”_ Bucky tries to answer, but as soon as he interrupts the measured breaths he’d been taking, the pain gets the better of him. Steve reaches out with his free hand and rubs his palm hard against the crest of Bucky’s hip. It seems to help enough that Bucky can speak again. “Presses against my cervix, hard as he can without stretching it.”

“Really hard to tell if I’m stretching it or not—”

 _“You are_ — _”_ Bucky replies, voice suddenly strained and sharp.

Sam backs off. “Okay — okay, I’m sorry,” he says, calm and composed in spite of his mistake. Steve has to admit — if he was in Sam’s position right now, he’d be too scared to keep going. “Okay, we’re gonna try something different — I’m going to put a little pressure on the back of your cervix, okay? One finger on either side. That hurt?”

“Just pressure, I’m okay.”

“Good deal. Try pushing — just a little bit.”

Bucky looks like he’s way past asking questions. He gets a breath, and pushes.

“Okay, I think this is working,” Sam hums tunelessly, glancing over at Steve with a hopeful half-smile. “Little more. Push like you’re trying to push my fingers out — long and slow. Keep going. Keep going, man — Barnes, if your water breaks all over me you better buy me dinner. Harder...harder, come on, little more…”

Steve leans his weight into Bucky’s leg, giving him something to resist and bear down against, and just as Steve realizes that Sam must be trying to force Bucky’s cervix into the right position, Bucky’s hand flies to his low belly and he flinches like he’s touched an open socket. One short gasp, and for a few seconds his face loses its warm flush and turns bloodlessly white, and then he’s either hyperventilating from the pain or laughing with the shock of relief.

“Yes!” Sam yells, cheering like he might as well be at a baseball game. “Contraction still going?”

“Yeah, worse!” Bucky pants, sounding oddly exhilarated.

“Okay, now that’s what these things are supposed to feel like…” Sam pulls his fingers back a few centimeters, holding completely still for a moment as he tries to measure by touch alone. “Sorry about the runaround, Barnes — Hydra sewed on all your lady parts inside out, backwards, and upside down — I was lost,” he gripes, rotating his wrist carefully as he removes his fingers. He strips off the glove with a snap, right into the trash can. “Five or six centimeters, Barnes. I’m out of practice, but I can call it pretty close — and baby girl’s got a nice, easy way down, now. Damn, I should have been a doctor.”

“Oh my God,” Bucky groans as Steve helps him sit up. Steve covers his lap with a towel and pulls him close, and Bucky collapses heavily against his side. “I thought I was gonna be stuck where I was forever,” he laughs absently.

“Progress,” Sam chants, writing down the time on the notepad Steve still keeps on the nightstand. “It’s not even seven o’clock — I’ll bet she’s out before midnight.”

Steve rocks Bucky against him, trying to soothe away the last moments of the cramp. “Couple more hours, Buck.”

“God, I hope so. I don’t want to be pregnant anymore,” he says, slurring his words like he’s getting delirious. “I just want to be able to sleep on my fuckin’ stomach again and eat sushi and wear clothes that don’t look like garbage…”

He’s sure Bucky wants to go on, but he seems to run out of energy long before he runs out of complaints.

“Steve, can I talk to you for a minute?” Sam asks suddenly, gesturing to the door to indicate that he wants the conversation to be private. Something about his voice sounds off — tense, despite the triumphant smile lingering on his face.

Must have something to do with the situation downstairs — which _can’t_ afford to go downhill. Steve gives Bucky’s shoulder a quick kiss and he picks his sweats up off the floor for him, then follows Sam out into the hall. Even before the bedroom door has shut behind him, Sam is shaking out his limbs like he’s walked through a spider web.

“Holy shit—Steve, holy shit—I haven’t done this in a really long time, and I’ve only done it, like, about three times, ever — one was in a parking lot and then I think twice in the ambulance, and then one on the floor of a Whole Foods, but that baby was almost out when I got there—I’m not—I don’t actually know what I’m doing and I’m flying blind here, what if—”

“Sam—Sam, Sam—” Steve tries to interrupt the stream of panicked babbling to no avail, until finally, in a moment of desperation, he grabs Sam and hugs him. It’s only partly to comfort him — it also has the advantage of pinning his arms to his sides and forcing him to take in less oxygen before he can hyperventilate. “Sam, you’re okay. Bucky’s healthy. Baby’s healthy. We’ve got no complications to deal with—”

“Yet! Steve, none _yet.”_

“If we need medical staff, Banner will send them up. Or he’ll come help. The second _not_ being here is a bigger risk than _being here_ , he will come and help us. Okay? I’m really nervous, too, but—”

“What if I freak out like this in front of Bucky? Then he’s gonna freak out, and we’re all gonna be freaked out—I can’t keep acting like I’ve got this when I don’t—”

“You’re doing great, man, you’re just stressed. It’s been a bad month. You’ve got this. We can do this,” Steve says, repeating every comforting phrase he can think of. He’s never seen Sam lose his composure like this, but given the circumstances, it’s very understandable.

“You’re squeezing me so hard.”

“Sorry, I just wanted you to calm down.”

“No, it’s good. It’s like one of those dog anxiety jackets, it’s helping.”

“Okay.”

Beside them, the bedroom door opens. “Wilson?” Bucky asks softly. “You alright?”

Sam pulls away from Steve and straightens up. “No, I’m good. Are _you_ alright?”

“I’m fine, I’m just having a baby. You’re having a fucking _crisis.”_

“No, I’m not, I’m better now. What do we need to do? Let’s get a plan together.”

“I want my water to break.”

“We all want that. Move to medical or stay here?”

“Contractions are still too far apart, let’s stay here.”

“Cool. Have I got time to make a phone call? What time is it in Seoul?”

“About 0800,” Steve answers, handing Sam his phone, with Cho’s contact information already pulled up.

“I’m going to clean the bedroom and rearrange furniture.”

“Bucky!”

“What? I want my water to break.”

“Well, what do I do?”

“Cook enough food for the next few days and leave it in the fridge. We’re not going to have time to make anything and we can’t get take-out if there’s a quarantine.”

“Good call.”

“Alright,” Sam sighs. He sounds like he’s got his head back on straight. “This is about to be _Three Men and a Baby: The Much Weirder Sequel._ Barnes, get on that heavy lifting, Rogers, you’re on KP. I’m gonna make a phone call and figure out how to safely remove a baby from a dude. I don’t know what I thought was gonna happen when I met you guys, but it sure wasn’t this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! <3


	10. 2100 Sharp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve has a breakdown, Bucky's water breaks, and Sam might have to break Steve's neck.

Steve cooks like he hasn’t cooked since he was at basic. He cooks as fast as he can and makes as much as he can, with the kind of efficiency only achievable by a one hundred pound asthmatic whose heart condition and nervous disorder couldn’t take another dressing down from the beast of a woman who ran the mess. He cleans out the refrigerator, throws out all the old leftovers, and replaces them with neat stacks of labeled and dated Tupperware. There’s no hope of freezing any of the food, though; he opens the icebox to find it completely filled with nothing but breastmilk, and before he can stop himself, he throws an incredulous glance toward the living room, where Bucky, already sweating and focused, is dragging a full bookshelf across the carpet to the opposite corner. “What the hell, Buck? We could feed the whole team if they didn’t mind eating breastmilk _,_ Jesus. This is a _stockpile._ What— _how_ did you make all this?”

“Remember how often we had to feed Lincoln?”

“Yeah, I know,” Steve huffs, because he does remember, but really _? The entire fucking freezer?_ “What’d you expect,” he mumbles to himself as he slams the freezer door, almost hoping that Bucky will overhear. “Had kids with a survivalist combat vet...lived through the fuckin’ Great Depression...could put _Prairie Farms_ out of work...”

Fortunately, his stressed, feverish energy gets the dishes scrubbed and put away in record time. He also puts a plastic cover down under the fitted sheet on their bed, because Bucky will inevitably be bleeding like busted fire-hydrant for the next week. Then, he covers all their unused outlets, cleans up Lincoln’s room, washes _those_ dishes, rifles through their packed closet and gets down Lincoln’s old wrap-style carrier and the sturdier one with the straps that he prefers, and stuffs more diapers and more socks and hats into the canvas duffel bag Bucky’s packed for his stint in medical. _And_ he does the rest of the laundry. After the third time he catches himself incoherently narrating each task aloud, he _realizes_ he’s having a nervous breakdown.

Steve faces a moment of deep panic. He stops everything.

 _Is this a symptom?_ Is he getting sick? Is he about to lose his mind?

No. No, this is exactly how he’d felt a few years ago, when he’d let Bucky go to medical alone with Bruce and Tony, and wandered dazedly around the apartment. This is just that temporary but powerful _I’m gonna have a baby_ insanity.

He’s glad he can at least recognize it for what it is, now. When Lincoln was born, he’d almost convinced himself he was having a heart attack or an aneurysm.

 _Knowing_ what the source of the breakdown is doesn’t change the fact that he’s having one. In a shameful moment of weak-willed indulgence, he rushes back to the bedroom, finds his suit, digs through the leather pockets on the belt, and finds a crushed pack of Kools with two cigarettes left in it. He’s aware that it’s gained a reputation as a terrible habit, but he also feels like his teammates could afford to cut him a little slack. His own doctor had recommended smoking menthols to treat his asthma. No small wonder he coughed so goddamn much, but it’s not like they could really hurt him _now._ He walks decisively back into the living room, throws open the sliding glass door, and takes a precarious seat on the balcony railing, heedless of the snow that’s collected on it. He can throw the butt away in a hurry if Lincoln wakes up and wanders back in.

“That cold air feels so good. _Fuck!”_ Bucky shouts abruptly. He’s dragged their sofa away from the wall and flipped it over. His shocked exclamation seems to be in response to the impressive amount of change, food, and small toys that spill out onto the carpet. He leans over for a moment, gritting his teeth through a labor pain, and then catches Steve’s eye and makes a sweeping gesture toward the place the couch had been. “Found out where all your son’s socks went—oh, come on, you stupid cunt!” he gripes, redirecting his emphatic gesture toward the cigarette between Steve’s lips, panting and looking rough as hell with wild wisps of hair clinging damply to his forehead. “I fucking _dream_ about those.”

Steve gives him a mockingly sympathetic frown. “Well, I’d offer you my other one, but they cause low birth weight now, so you’re shit-outta-luck.”

“Probably shoulda been smoking ‘em this whole time. Wait—you got another one?”

“You even look at one of those things and I will slap the fuck out of you, Barnes,” Sam warns emphatically, striding back into the living room with a notepad and pen and Steve’s cellphone still clutched in his hands, having apparently finished his call to Cho. “I’ll slap you so goddamn hard you’ll miss Hydra. Steve, put that out or I’ll snap-kick you’re dumb ass off that balcony. Don’t test me.”

“You _bummed_ one yesterday, asshole!”

“You’re a bad boyfriend and a bad father, and I’m adopting your kids.”

“Come on, Sam, Kools are all I’ve got left, man. Only other things that stuck around are Sara Lee and the American Nazi Party.”

“Damn, that’s a bunch of socks.”

“Yeah, that’s Lincoln,” Bucky groans, pitching forward again to rub a cramp out of his quads. “Steve raised my son to act like a fuckin’ gerbil. He makes nests.”

“Maybe he wouldn’t hide his laundry if you’d stop being a fascist about it. You let him wear his clothes _one time_ and then they’re ‘dirty,’” Steve counters smartly.

“‘Cause he gets them dirty,” Bucky grunts, gathering up the discarded socks and bits of trash, and throwing them respectively toward the wastebasket and the laundry hamper that he’s dragged into the living room. Steve and Sam wisely avoid offering any criticism, even though they both see a few socks getting tossed into the garbage.

“Bucky, you wore the same pair of jeans for _two years_ one time.”

“I’m trying to raise my son to be a better man than me,” Bucky hollers over the noise of the vacuum, which he’s now plowing aggressively over their carpet. “Which would be a hell of a lot easier if his fuckin’ dad would make him do his chores!”

“Call with Helen went very well, if anyone cares,” Sam cuts in. “We can call her back if we’ve got questions Banner can’t answer.”

“She alright?” Steve asks, suddenly wishing he’d brought the other cigarette with him. There’s too much shit to worry about right now for a _one_ cigarette breakdown.

“She’s good — situation in North Korea’s getting out to other news outlets, though.”

“Oh _great_ , what’s—” but Steve stops himself, throwing his hands up in resignation. “Fuck. No. I’ll worry about it when I’m back on duty.”

“Good,” Sam nods approvingly. “I keep telling you, _compartmentalize_ —”

“Sam.”

“—You’ve got to learn not to—”

“Sam—Sam, fuck, towel.”

Bucky is reaching desperately toward the single, dirty towel draped over the edge of the hamper, standing with his thighs pressed together and a hand cupped over the seat of his pants. He’d just squatted down and flipped the couch back over. Sam gets him the towel fast. Steve finishes the last drag of his Kool with a surprised gasp.

“Well,” he laughs, a little frantically, jogging inside to wash the smell of smoke off his hands. “That did it.”

“2100 sharp and that water is _broken,”_ Sam announces gleefully.

“Oh, Christ, fuck—I thought there’d be a lot more than that!” Bucky groans, as he and Sam struggle to keep the mess contained to the towel. Steve rushes over with two more, fresh from the dryer. “Oh God, oh shit.”

“We kept it off this clean carpet,” Sam chuckles. “That’s what’s important. Okay, I’m calling it — Steve, get him to medical. I’ll grab Slim and meet you down there.”

“Okay, thanks,” Steve replies. “Bucky, let’s—”

But Bucky drops the towel in favor of clutching blindly for their hands, gripping Steve’s in his left and Sam’s forearm in his right, practically dragging Sam to the ground with him as he collapses. He sits down hard on the floor, rocking forward and digging his heels into the carpet, with one long exhale that drags a deep, ragged, hum out of him along with it. Steve recognizes that particular sound — this got serious  _fast._

“Okay, Buck, let’s just ride this one out on the floor, then we’ll—”

Bucky interrupts him immediately, slurring his words like he’s blackout drunk. “No, no, Steve—”

“You wanna get up?”

“No, I can’t—”

“Stay here?”

“No, god, oh, no, _no_ —”

Steve looks to Sam for help, wide-eyed, lost, and scared to death. “What—what do I _do?”_

“Let him keep saying _no_ until he wants to say something else.”

With no other option presently available, Steve does just that. A few more seconds of repeating those few words in response to nothing at all, and Bucky goes back to that familiar low groan. Then, moving like he’s swimming through thick mud, he pulls on Steve and Sam until they finally understand what he wants and help him shift in the right direction, and turns himself onto his hands and knees. Sam, in a moment of calm, educated foresight, spreads the towels out underneath him.

Steve’s not quite as calm. He kneels down right in front of Bucky, reaching forward to place his hand on the small of Bucky’s back, hoping cluelessly that the warmth from his palm will provide just a little bit of comfort. “Baby, tell me how to help. I’m right here, sweetheart, just hang on. It’s gonna pass soon — it’s gonna pass, I promise.”

“Don’t go,” Bucky manages to say around a sharp, wavering inhalation, when he can finally stop groaning. He presses his forehead into Steve’s abdomen, burying his face against him so insistently that it practically knocks the wind out of him. Steve doesn’t know what else to do but lay his free hand on Bucky’s sweat-soaked hair, letting him know he can push his head into his solar plexus just as hard as he needs to. “Don’t go, Steve—don’t go…”

“I’m not, baby, I’m not gonna go.”

Four and a half minutes pass, and Bucky eventually falls silent, but he doesn’t budge. Not an inch. Steve and Sam share one confused glance, and they both seem to agree to say nothing for now. Then, Bucky’s breathing changes again, and this time, he doesn’t hum or groan — he gasps for breath like he’s dying, shoulders shaking — real, gut-wrenching _sobs_ tearing through him until Steve can feel hot tears bleeding through the fabric of his shirt. And Steve doesn’t know if he can stand _that_ . Bucky had screamed and cussed and moaned all through Lincoln’s birth, but he hadn’t _cried_ — _God,_ not like _this_ —

Steve actually _hears_ the second wave of fluid hit the towels. It’s a _lot._ And the moment that happens, Bucky’s sobs turn into long, racking sighs of relief.

“See, you knew it wasn’t done yet,” Sam smiles. “You tried to tell us.”

“Goddamn it, I’m sorry,” Bucky croaks, voice wrecked and weak from crying, letting Steve hook his arms around his sides and lift him up into a hug. He’s dead weight against Steve’s chest. “I couldn’t talk or anything, I just lost it...”

“Hey—hey, sugar,” Steve says soothingly, feeling himself relax right along with Bucky. “You’re doing fine. We’re just getting real close.”

“Feels like...feels so fast all of a sudden.”

“Yeah, I know. She’s gonna be here before you know it.”

Bucky laughs against him, still hazy as he comes down from the pain-high. “Oh, I think I’ll know it.”

 

Banner had thoughtfully placed a wheelchair in an alcove of the common room, once Bucky’s due date was imminent. Steve loads it up with their overnight bag, snacks and water bottles, fresh clothes for both of them and an extra set for Sam, as well as the electric pump (even though he has no clue where they could possibly store any more milk). Bucky insists that he'll be able to walk himself to the elevator and down to Cho’s old lab, but it'll be good to at least have the wheelchair to lean on.

In the meantime, Sam waits with Bucky and they let a few more contractions pass in the living room. Sam’s prediction that they’ll be more manageable now is confirmed — Bucky says they’re more intense, but nowhere near as painful. It’s a noticeable shift, and it must feel like good progress to him. Steve thinks Bucky’s disposition is brighter every time he passes through the living room, gathering their things.

He makes one last stop in their bedroom, checking for anything they might want that he’s missed. He finds Bucky’s cellphone on the nightstand and pockets it, just as his own buzzes against his thigh. It’s a message from Bruce.

**Tried to text Bucky, no answer**

**Is he ok?**

_He’s fine,_ Steve replies. _Water broke at 9. We’re headed down to medical. Tony?_

**Brain scan shows improvement!**

Oh, thank God. _Good. Any idea what this is yet?_

**No, once he’s better, I’ll take all the data to his lab and have Friday analyze. For now just focusing on him.**

**Good to have data from peak symptom presentation going back to normal. Maybe i can track down what caused him to improve.**

**Keep me updated on Bucky please?**

_I will!_

Steve puts the phone away, and feels another vibration against his thigh, but finds the screen still black when it takes it out. The buzzing doesn’t stop, though — it’s Bucky’s cell. He takes that one out and recognizes the number immediately, even though there’s no contact information associated with it.

“Hey — Ruth — it’s Steve.”

“Steve, hi! I was just calling to check on Dad—” and she cuts the word short with a stutter, “on—on Bucky. How is he?”

Steve grins. “He’s okay, but—” Steve can hear Bucky’s droning, sharply focused hum in the living room. “I don’t think he can talk right now.”

“I thought it might be a bad time — well, it’s 10:30 here, and I was thinking of going to bed, but I thought I’d call first and check in.”

“Do you want him to call you back?”

“Yeah, I’d really appreciate it — I don’t have to be up early tomorrow, I might just keep working on this paper...” She clears her throat. “Did he tell you I was coming to speak at Johns Hopkins?”

“When — for how long?” Steve asks, feeling his own face light up. “Will you be able to make it up to New York?”

“On the twelfth. And...I can make time to visit. I just don’t know if he wants...I think he’s a little concerned about Lincoln.”

“I’ll see if we can’t squeeze in a family meeting before the twelfth,” Steve promises. It won’t hurt to _ask_ Bucky. He’s asked a dozen times already, and he hates to be pushy about something that isn’t his decision, but Lincoln’s young — he’ll adjust. Knowing about Ruth won’t hurt him, and it would have been far less of an issue if Bucky had agreed to tell him sooner. Meanwhile, Bucky’s daughter feels like an outsider, when she shouldn’t. “You know he loves it when you call him that. When you call him ‘dad.’ Means the world to him.”

“I think it still scares him a little. And — well. I understand why. I know how hard it must have been to—”

“Ruth, finding you was one of the best things that ever happened to him. Maybe he doesn’t always know how to tell you, but he loves you. And so do I. And Lincoln’s gonna love you, too.”

“Hug him for me, if he’ll let you.”

“I will.”

“And I want pictures of her. At least a dozen.”

“You got it,” Steve laughs, and then the part of his brain that’s always on active duty, the part that never does seem to come home, tells him to say something. “Hey. I know...I know this thing at Johns Hopkins is probably huge, Ruth...but just call us before you leave, would you? There’s a situation the team’s been handling. I can’t say a lot, and we’ll probably have it resolved really soon...but if it looks like it’s gonna go international...just be careful, alright?”

Ruth takes a moment to process the warning, but then seems to accept that Steve has said all he can. “I will.”

“Thank you. We’ll call you back as soon as we can.”

“Good luck.”

Steve ends the call without the smile he’s started it with, but he’s glad he got the chance to talk to her. Between Bucky and Ruth, he feels like a third wheel, and he wishes he could fix it — but there’s no easy answer in regard to defining their relationship. The most he can do is let her know, independently from Bucky, whenever he can, that he cares about her just as unconditionally as Bucky does.

He turns to leave the room, stopping momentarily at the crib just across from their bed. He brushes his hand over the soft, empty mattress as he walks by, knowing that next time he stands right there in that spot, the next time he repeats that motion, it won’t be empty anymore.


	11. Moving Back Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, you can't help but think about where you came from.

Bucky never imagined he’d be so thankful for an evacuation and quarantine. He doesn’t exactly make himself presentable for the long, slow trip down to the third floor. He walks on his own as they leave the apartment, but walking, even when he’s not in pain, has become an interesting challenge of its own within the last hour. When Lincoln had starting dropping lower, it had been noticeable, and after his water had broken, he’d spent most of his time squatting or kneeling or lying on his side. Now, he’s trying to make his way across the Facility’s expansive campus, to the other side of the building, and his water has already broken and her head is putting so much pressure on his pelvic floor that he’s scared he must be squeezing the daylights out of her. Not to mention, she’s probably about three pounds heavier than Lincoln was — _how much is that, really?_ Bucky wonders, picturing the three pound bag of onions hanging in their kitchen. Half a gallon of milk. An entire fucking _cantaloupe melon._

“I’m so fucked,” he says aloud, laughing, because he doesn’t know what else to do. Steve is pushing the wheelchair alongside him, struggling to walk slowly enough to match Bucky’s best speed.

Steve looks a little alarmed by the statement, but laughs along with him anyway — albeit, nervously. “Got the jitters?”

“Kind of — I knew my belly was big, but now I’m getting an idea of how big she is compared to — you know. My pelvis. She’s real fuckin’ big.” Bucky tries to pick up the pace a little as he detours over to Lincoln’s fort and peaks in.

“Is he _still_ out? Check for a pulse.”

“He was up until almost two last night playing on that stupid Starkpad. He thinks I can’t hear him after I turns his lights out or something. Then he was up with me around 0530. He had a quick nap earlier. Definitely needed a few more hours, though.” Bucky fits the throw pillow back over the top of Lincoln’s fort, giving him a few more minutes of darkness before Sam comes to collect him.

“His sleep schedule’s gonna be a disaster once this baby’s here.”

“So’s ours.”

They nearly make it to the elevator before Bucky has to wait out a minute-long contraction. They’re _so_ much easier now. He can still talk rather than scream, and he doesn’t lose track of time or lose the ability to _think_ , like he had right before his water had broken. God, he hopes that was transitional labor that had laid him out on the living room carpet. _God,_ he hopes that was it, and it’s over and out of the way. If he gets downstairs to medical and finds out he’s still not fully effaced, he’s going to spend the next few hours holding onto Steve’s _balls_ instead of his hand.

Who the fuck’s he kidding. He doesn’t resent Steve for this. He can’t resent that bastard for anything — not when he’s walking alongside him, projecting nothing but calm patience, leaning easily on the elevator door to keep it open so Bucky can step in as soon as he’s able, and looking at his belly with that dreamy-eyed wonder, like he’s already looking at their baby girl. With Bucky’s legs still shaking and the wheelchair already loaded into the elevator, Steve offers his hand for support as Bucky steps in.

They lean next to each other on the back wall, silent for a moment, and Steve reaches out almost automatically, eyes staring forward and lost in thought, and lays his palm on the swell of Bucky’s abdomen. The absent way Steve’s splayed fingers caress him, the familiarity of it, gives Bucky a feeling he doesn’t have a name for. Steve was his friend once, back in school. Later, he was what Bucky supposes could be called a boyfriend — he’s not sure which had come first — the sexual attraction or the romantic love — but both had reached their boiling points within the span of a few frigid winter days, when they were seventeen and sixteen. After Steve came and found him, broke him out of that labor camp in Kreischberg, something deep had shifted between them — like two tectonic plates crashing together, and they were lovers. They’d take bullets for each other without a hint of fear, without question. They’d stopped needing so many words to express their love, then — said _I love you_ less and acted on the incontrovertible truth of it more. And then, for decades, they had paused there — became estranged for a while, because Bucky had become a stranger. Finally, Bucky had remembered, and that _stranger,_ while he’d never left, had loosened his grip on his mind. With a little time and experience, the stranger had come to love Steve, too. But even lovers could come and go, so they became partners — shared every secret, trusted one another beyond all doubts, worked together, lived together, slept together, raised a son together. And now it’s been nearly six years, and things have changed again, somehow. Steve can touch him without asking, find him without looking, take something from him and give something equal back, knows what he needs and wants before Bucky knows himself. Every impermanent connection that had tangled their separate lives together has solidified into a singular, inseparable life. Nobody seems to say one of their names without saying the other along with it, as if they’re one word, one name. These days, they say Lincoln’s name, too, like a bright, glorious little suffix. Steve and Bucky and Lincoln.

_There’s the word._ Bucky lets his head fall back against the chrome walls of the elevator, smiling just a little, looking for any excuse to say it and settling quickly on an abundantly obvious statement of fact. “Family’s about to get bigger,” he remarks, tipping his gaze toward Steve with a smile that he hopes doesn’t look as smug as he’s feeling just then.

Steve lips purse as if he’s about to speak, and then, with an almost imperceptible shake of his head, he turns his eyes toward the floor. He has _something_ he wants to say. Bucky drives the elbow of his prosthetic into his ribcage insistently. Steve lets a soft, self-conscious laugh escape his throat before he finally speaks.

“What do you think of Brooklyn?”

“We had this talk, Steve,” Bucky sighs. Steve’s been dreaming of two things for the past five years: moving back home to Brooklyn and buying a house of their own — something with a nice yard. Bucky can’t seem to get it into Steve’s head that those two dreams are mutually exclusive. “Anyways, it’s safer to stay here. You really feel like dropping a couple million for less security? ‘Cause I—”

“No, no — I know.” Steve’s got a peculiar little smirk on his face that only shows up when he wants something that Bucky’s not likely to let him have. “Cute name for a little girl, though.”

Steve accepts both his silence and his burst of laughter with a tight-lipped, humiliated smile and a slow nod. “You big dumb fuck,” Bucky scoffs. “No way.”

“You got to name the last one. Come on. Let me do this.”

_God almighty, he’s not kidding._

_He’s fucking serious._

Bucky’s so bewildered that he feels another contraction winding up sooner than it ought to. For God’s sake, she’s probably wedged herself inside him so she won’t have to come out and get _named._ “Steve, I don’t—it’s kind of—I mean, are you—”

Steve’s still nodding, still holding that forced, hurt little smile on his face. He really _wants_ this. How long has he had this in mind? How long has poor Steve been working up the gumption to make this pitch, preparing himself to be laughed at like this?

“I’ll think about it.”

“Really? You will?”

“But it’s real dumb, Steve.”

“So? Lincoln’s dumb. He turned out fine.”

The elevator chimes, and the doors slide open onto the empty hallway that leads to the Facility’s medical wing. Steve moves to hold the doors, letting Bucky take the wheelchair for support, but blocks him from actually stepping off the elevator. He throws a cheeky glance over his shoulder. “Did you think about it?”

_Fuck._

_Maybe one day, she’ll forgive me for this. But I’m gonna make damn sure she remembers it was his fault._

“I like it.”

_Or I will. Eventually._

Steve lights up like he’s won the lottery. “Really?”

“Of course I do.” _I better come up with a middle name that’s not so embarrassing. Something that’ll shut Tony up._

“Oh my God,” Steve gushes, with the biggest grin on his face that Bucky’s ever seen. “I’m so happy.”

_Well, alright then. Brooklyn it is._

* * *

Bruce must have spent the better part of his morning getting the room ready. It looks like he even came back just before Tony arrived, once he knew there was a chance he wouldn’t be able to be there. Everything they could conceivably need has been set out: the counter has a stack of pads for the bed, clean towels, washcloths; any surgical tools they might need in an emergency have been sterilized and set out on a tray. Bruce also pulled out the old exercise ball and left the birthing stool beside the bed. On top of the bed, he’s left out two pairs of the adhesive pads that he and Tony had developed to wirelessly monitor contractions, along with a hastily drawn diagram showing how the should be placed. A note at the bottom reads, _Bad artist! Sorry! Friday will help!_ The screen is already on, with a blank field scrolling by, second by second — the rest of the data will fill in once they’ve got the monitors attached.

“Hello, everyone!” Friday greets them, bursting with enthusiasm so believable that Bucky can hardly believe she’s AI. Tony had created a separate iteration of her just for the delivery room he’d added to the medical wing — one that had priority access to a huge reserve of data on maternal and fetal medicine. And because Tony never did anything halfway, he had also dedicated a larger portion of her functionality to humor, empathy, and atmosphere control. “Steve! Stick the pads on him! Dr. Banner taught me to measure new stats.”

Bucky lifts his t-shirt and lets Steve apply them, and the moment Steve gets the second one on him and the two sensors connect, the screen populates with the same data as last time — his intrauterine pressure, a space for his MVU, once it’s calculated, his own heart rate, the baby’s heart rate, and his blood pressure. Additionally, in the corner of the screen, a few new items have appeared:

**Fetal Oxygen Saturation: 49% (Normal)**

**Fetal Presentation: Cephalic Posterior (Abnormal)**

**_Head will present first, baby is facing abdomen_ **

**Cervical Dilation: 6.4cm**

“You got my dilation and the baby’s position from these things?” Bucky laughs incredulously.

“Well — Bruce figured it out. I’m definitely helping, though. He thought you might be happier with fewer internal exams.”

“Who wouldn’t be?”

“I’ve never minded them! And I can measure your cervix really well. It looks extra soft right now, if you were wondering about it. Anyway, pressure’s climbing pretty fast in there — you might want to sit down.”

But Bucky stalls for a moment, noticing that Steve’s eyes are locked on the screen, brow furrowed. “What?”

“That abnormal presentation — should we call Bruce?”

“Since she’s not in distress,” Friday reasons, “it’s not very concerning. If she was breach I’d have already let him know. This particular presentation isn’t usually too dangerous for baby, though it can make labor a real bastard for mum or dad.”

“That explains a lot,” Bucky mutters, settling down on the edge of the bed and struggling out of his ruined sweats before the contraction can pick up any more steam.

“You want a gown? Or are you happy wearing that old circus tent?” Steve smirks, tugging on the sleeve of Bucky’s ridiculously long shirt. “You know, Thor left that on the Quinjet about seven years ago. Went back to Asgard without it.”

“No wonder it fits. I was wondering why you still owned a S.H.I.E.L.D. t-shirt. Ow. Ow, goddamnit—oh, here we go again—”

Bucky stands up, desperate to stretch his aching legs, and leans on the back of the bed, panting hard and deliberately not facing the screen on the wall, because of how slowly the seconds seem to be scrolling by on the graph. Steve moves in to help, but stalls, unsure of which way to go. Bucky knows why — he heard the chime of the elevator, too. Steve looks almost comically torn.

“Go get him, Stevie.”

“Are you—?”

“I’m good, go.”

* * *

 

Steve knows he should feel worse than he does about leaving Bucky alone — but Sam will be there soon. The truth is, he loves Bucky with everything he’s got, but he has some kind of uncontrollable, instinctive, biological response to Lincoln. They both do. Nothing takes precedence over him. And this is the longest Steve’s ever been away from his son. Once he leaves the delivery room and Bucky can’t see just how desperate he is, he clears the lab at a run and only slows down once he hits the hallway, so he won’t startle Lincoln and Sam.

But once Lincoln sees him, they’re _both_ running.

“Dad? Dad!”

Steve’s lucky his kid’s so goddamn durable, because he sweeps him off the floor and hugs him to his chest with the kind of force that would give any other five-year-old whiplash. Lincoln gives as good as he gets, though — clamps his legs around Steve’s torso to hang on and locks his arms around his neck, clinging so hard that Steve’s not sure he could pull him off if he tried. Not that he’s going to try.

“Hey! Hey, baby boy—oh, my God, I missed you so much,” Steve says between kiss after kiss after kiss, all over his son’s face.

“A beard?” Lincoln laughs, like he’s been given a late Christmas present. “You grew a beard again? Daddy, I don’t like it!”

“What? Come on, you’ll get used to it,” Steve teases, ducking his head defensively, teeth clenched, as Lincoln does his best to pull it. “Quit that!”

“I can’t, I’m really happy to see you, because I was scared that you got hurt and I love you—”

“Oh, gosh, baby, I love you too—”

“And next time I’m gonna come with you—”

“Is that what you think?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna help because next time I’ll be big enough—”

“Aw, I could just squeeze you to death, you little—”

“Did you miss me really bad?”

“You bet I did—”

“Did you miss Papa?”

“I missed Papa like crazy—”

“Did you win?”

Steve forces his face to stay happy and bright, and thinks of a response. “...Well — I don’t know yet.”

“Why do you not know if you won?”

“I had to come home early before we got done.”

“Because of the new baby!”

“Yes!” Steve grins, jostling Lincoln excitedly. “Papa’s gonna have the new baby!”

“I wanna go see her. Please? Let’s go see her right now!”

“Oh, buddy — she’s not here just yet, so we’ve gotta —”

_Now wait just one goddamn second._

“Sam!”

Sam disappears through the doors of the lab rather quickly, shouting back to Steve, “I’m really sorry, man, I broke down!”

Steve tries to form a convincingly ecstatic expression. “Surprise, buddy! You’re gonna have a little sister!”

“What’s her name?”

_Bucky said yes. He can’t take it back now. Especially not if I tell Lincoln._

“Brooklyn,” he answers dreamily. God, it feels nice to answer that question out loud. Way better than all the times he’s done it in his head.

“What about the rest of her names?”

“What? Her last name? Barnes-Rogers, just like you.”

“What about her middle name?”

“I’m gonna let your Papa pick that out.”

“What about her nickname? Like when Sam calls me Slim because I’m skinny.”

“Well, I guess you and Sam are going to have to work together and decide on one for her. You’re going to have to get to know her first, though. That’s how people get nicknames — sometimes, later on, we realize that a made-up name works better than someone’s real name. Kind of like how Papa’s name is James, but I call him—”

_“James?”_ Lincoln practically screams, mouth hanging open in a devastated frown. “Papa’s name isn’t _James!_ It’s _Bucky_ and Buck is his nickname because that’s what you call him!”

“It is so his name,” Steve insists. “James Buchanan Barnes.”

“I’m never calling him that, ever. I hate it. I’m going to call him Papa instead.”

“What do you think my name is?”

“Steve?”

“Close — it’s a little longer—”

“Captain America?”

“No—” Steve cuts himself off, biting his tongue so he can hold it together. “No, my name is _Steven._ Steven Grant Rogers.”

“I hate that, too.”

“Okay.”

“Dad, do you think that maybe Brooklyn is here now? I’m pretty sure we actually waited long enough and we can go get her. _”_

“Lincoln — okay, second time, so ears open: Brooklyn isn’t here yet. We’ve got to wait, alright? You’ll hear about it the second she gets here, I promise.”

“So Bruce still didn’t give him the new baby yet!” Lincoln states incredulously. He seems genuinely pissed about the delay — like he might want to talk to Bruce’s supervisor, or something.

And Steve _tries_ not to laugh — he doesn’t want Lincoln to think he’s laughing _at him._ Even though he is. “Listen, Lincoln, I think you’re still a little bit confused about how this works—”

“How _does_ it work? Because we need to figure it out so we can get my little sister now.”

_Well, fuck. Now I’ve gone and put my foot in it._

_Okay. It’s fine. You’re fine. Calm the fuck down._

_Here goes nothing._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There. Now she's got a name. It's an embarrassment, and I realize that. Flames welcome. :)


	12. Big Talks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having a conversation with Lincoln is like pulling teeth.

Steve knows they’re long overdue for this conversation — and he _did_ tell Bucky he’d take care of it. It’s not as if he could reasonably ask Bucky to answer the inevitable barrage of questions himself — not right now, anyway. And Lincoln needs at least a primer before he goes into the delivery room. Steve wishes that a primer would satisfy him — childbirth and delivery is easier to explain than, well, _everything,_ but once Lincoln has a little information on a subject, he’ll ask questions until he’s exhausted the breadth of Steve _and_ Bucky’s knowledge. Then, when he can, he’ll move on to interrogating Sam, Sharon, Tony, and Bruce. And according to Bucky and his first-hand experience with both ordeals, refusing to answer a question from Lincoln is about as hard as refusing to answer Hydra’s questions had been in ‘43. Neither one would let him sleep until they had what they wanted. Lincoln could be _worse,_ in fact, because all Hydra had wanted was coordinates. Lincoln wanted to know how much sand there is, why soccer games don’t have cheerleaders, if there’s a God, and on _multiple occasions_ he’s demanded a visual representation of the approximate size of an orca. There’s no way in hell he’s not going to launch a full-scale inquiry into how that baby got inside Bucky.

All this goddamn serum and a brain that can learn and compute and deduce facts at a significantly enhanced rate, and Steve still can’t figure out how to talk to his son about sex and reproduction.

With a deep, thoughtful sigh, Steve lets Lincoln slide down his side to straddle his hip, where he can carry him with one arm. He strolls slowly toward the labs, although he has no intention to bring Lincoln in yet. They had better set the record straight first — before Lincoln has to get his information in 3D.

He finds himself bouncing Lincoln nervously as he struggles to decide where to begin the explanation — what to tell him, what to leave out for now, what Bucky might prefer to answer later. Forget doing it perfectly — Bucky needs him back in there. Lincoln will have to be satisfied with an unrehearsed version.

“Alright, buddy. Listen up. This is — well, this is kind of a grown-up conversation, and you’re going to be confused about some of it. That’s okay. You can ask questions as we go.”

“Okay. Grown-up how? Like finances and the Middle-east and stuff?”

“A little more personal than that. But — not as depressing as those things. It’s actually a _happy_ grown-up conversation about where babies come from. Well, um — okay. Do you know what sex is?”

“Sex is chromosomes and hormones and inside and outside organs and they tell you if something is male or female. Sometimes the parts can be different though so it’s not just two ways, it’s a lot of them. Sometimes stuff is sexual and sometimes it’s asexual and sometimes it’s a hermaphrodite. Snails can be all three.”

Lincoln spills the stream of words out so quickly that Steve doesn’t really see a reason to cut him off. He’s left staring blankly at his little boy, whose expression is quickly evolving from self-satisfied to woefully unsure of his answer. Steve’s got no response for that information dump. Of all Bucky’s strengths and talents, Steve would never have guessed that homeschooling was going to be his forte. “That’s—that’s real neat, Lincoln. But what about humans? Do you know how people—um, reproduce?”

“Yeah,” Lincoln nods. “Because they’re mammals. So they reproduce sexually. So like dogs and cats and lions and those guys instead of laying eggs or just splitting in half, like some stuff does.”

“Alright,” Steve says quickly, putting Lincoln down and deciding he can’t parse this out, hold a child, and walk all the same time. He sits down on the floor, leaning against the wall and stretching out his legs. Lincoln uses Steve’s crossed ankles like a bench, and sits down, too. “Maybe _reproduction_ wasn’t the right word. I mean, it is, but — we’re talking about _sex_ as a verb, here, not as noun. It’s something that two grown-ups can _do_ together. When grown-ups love each other, or if they just want to be close, they can have sex with each other. It’s how they make a baby.”

“So Papa did se—have—um, he had sex?”

“Yeah. That’s how he got pregnant.”

“Have you ever had sex?”

Steve knows he’s staring at Lincoln like he’s stupid again. He wishes he could stop himself, but sometimes, the questions are way the hell out of left field, and he’s just not sure what he’s doing wrong, what he’s not saying, that makes Lincoln infer all of this _bizarre_ shit. “Yeah. Lincoln. Yes.”

“So...did you not get a baby?”

“Yeah, of course I did,” Steve chuckles. “I got you.”

“But you guys told me Papa had me!”

“No, Lincoln—he _did_. Look, just—okay, so when two people have sex, one person has to—well, one person has this stuff called sperm, and the other person has an egg.”

“I know about sperms and eggs. That’s how mammals reproduce, Dad. The sperm goes and finds the eggs. I said I knew that.”

“Okay, good! Great. So, I only have sperm, alright? I don’t have any eggs. Your Papa has eggs, so _my_ sperm went and found one of his eggs, and when that sperm found his egg, it made a baby. And then the baby grew inside of his belly for nine months.”

“So Papa did—Papa had sex with _you_?”

“Yeah. That how we made you, and that’s how we made Brooklyn.”

Lincoln looks like he might giggle, but his nose wrinkles with disgust. “Ew.”

“Who did you _think_ he had sex with?”

“Bruce, because Bruce is going to give him the baby, which is what you said!”

 _Oh. Well. That explains a lot._ Steve knew this was going to wind up being his fault.

“I already know the part about it growing inside his belly for nine months. Because I can see it, because he got—um, like—he got a lot fatter.”

Steve’s eyes water. He _can’t_ laugh at that. Lincoln’s been known to snitch.

“So where did you get it?”

“Where’d I get what?”

“The sperm you gave him. Where did you buy it? Or is it free? Like, you made it yourself?”

 _God help me. I knew it was gonna fuckin’ be like this. I knew this was going to be hell on earth. I could just jump out a window right now and he’d forget all about this conversation. I’d probably survive the fall, I’ve done it before_ — “Uh, sperm is something your body just makes. Like—uh, well—like spit.”

“Does it come out of your mouth, too? Like spit? Is that what happens when you guys kiss?”

“No. It—well, it’s—”

_Well, easy part of the conversation is officially over. Come on, man, just say it. You’ve explained worse things to this kid. You had to tell him how to wipe his own ass, remember that? That was weirder. No it wasn’t. This is exponentially fucking worse._

“Why did the baby make him so sick?”

_Oh, praise God, he moved on._

“Because—”

“Wait, how does the baby come out?”

_Never mind. Back in the weeds._

Steve clears his throat, then wishes he’d just come right out and said it. This kid can sense when he’s uncomfortable with something or afraid. He’s like some kind of apex predator that hunts you down and asks embarrassing questions. “Do you know where babies usually come out of people?”

“Do they throw them up? Is that why Papa threw up so much? Because stuff _can_ get out of your belly like that.”

“The baby’s not actually in his belly, where food goes—she’s in this really soft, warm thing called a uterus. It’s underneath Papa’s stomach. It keeps her safe until she’s big enough to come out.”

“Why is it soft?”

“So that it keeps her safe.”

“So then it should probably be hard, like armor or something. Then she’d be _really_ safe.”

“The uterus connects to this little stretchy tube called a cervix, and those usually connect to something called a vagina. So...well, alright. This is the confusing part.” Steve has completely dissociated. This is the most awful conversation he’s ever had. He hates this. “Usually, only girls can have babies. And most girls have an opening between their legs called a vagina. That’s where babies usually come out. But Papa doesn’t have one of those.”

“Oh no! Dad, it doesn’t have to come out of his penis, does it? Dad — remember when Sam had a bladder stone? And I thought he was going to die and he thought he was going to die, too?”

“No! Lincoln — no, it doesn’t come out of his—”

“Oh—then just his butt?”

“Yes.”

“That’s not as bad.”

“You’re not confused?”

“No, I get it.”

_Damn. That could have gone a lot worse._

Lincoln seems pretty confident with his answer at first, but Steve can still see a lingering question — something Lincoln’s still trying to puzzle out.

“If mostly girls can have babies, and Papa’s a boy, then why can he do it?”

Steve swallows. He has to walk a narrow line, here. Bucky is less than forthcoming with giving his son personal information — so much so that he and Steve have fought about it more than once. He won’t let Steve talk about his missions, he won’t talk about his own missions, and while Lincoln has deduced that their jobs are dangerous from the times he’s seen one or the other come home injured, Bucky doesn’t want him to know that there’s even a remote possibility that one of them could be killed in action. Hydra and Bucky’s past, though — those are completely off limits. The team knows not to bring it up around Lincoln. He wouldn’t want Strazds or Zola mentioned. Bucky would never forgive Steve if Lincoln found out that the modifications that had lead to his birth were horrible, torturous, and done without his consent. He says it would make Lincoln feel unwanted.

“Your Papa had some surgeries a long time ago. He got a uterus and a cervix, and some special medicines and procedures that helped him make his own eggs.”

“Like how that doctor made you bigger? So you could fight in World War II?”

Steve nods. “Kind of like that.”

“Did he get his fake arm at the same time? Or was he, um—is that how he was born?”

Steve snorts. “No, he got his fake arm before that, after he got into an accident.” That should have answered Lincoln’s question, but he still looks like there’s something bothering him. “What, Lincoln? Whatever it is, you can ask me.”

“Well — you know how you got to be Captain America because that doctor did that thing to you?”

“Yeah.”

“And that’s why you’re an Avenger, now, right? Like, because you’ve got superpowers. Because you’re really strong.”

Steve smiles. Damn, it feels good to hear that from his own son.

“So is having babies even though he doesn’t have a vagina...is that Papa’s superpower?”

Steve laughs so hard he hits his head against the wall. Lincoln shows no mercy — he just keeps pressing the issue.

“It’s not a joke, Daddy! Is that how come he gets to be on the team? I just asked a _question,_ Dad, don’t laugh at me!”

“I’m not laughing at you, baby,” Steve lies, wiping his eyes on the shoulder of his t-shirt. “I’m sorry. No. That is not your Papa’s superpower. He’s just really strong, just like me. Well — I don’t know,” Steve giggles. “It is kind of a superpower, I guess.”

“That’s why I was asking, because you said you got some medicine that made you Captain America, and that he got something that made him have a uterus, and that sounds like really similar things.”

“You know what?” Steve grunts, dragging Lincoln up to his chest and then hauling himself up off the floor, with Lincoln’s head draped over his shoulder. “I think you should tell your Papa that you think having babies is a good superpower. Come on, sugar. Let’s go see how he’s doing.”

But Lincoln balks the moment Steve makes that suggestion — sits up straight against Steve’s side and pushes against him like he wants to be let down.

“Wait — Daddy, wait a minute.”

Steve stops.

“I didn’t know...I thought we were just going to see my baby sister. I just want to go see Brooklyn once she comes out.”

“Lincoln — baby, what’s the matter?”

Lincoln purposefully turns his head away to look around, as if something else has caught his attention, and explains very quietly, “Well — I got really mad at Papa earlier and now I would actually like to avoid him, please.”

Steve lets a sigh slip from his throat. “Well, sweetheart, you’ve got to come with me, and I’ve got to go be with him. Nobody’s here that can babysit for you right now.”

“But Sam is here! We could go watch the dinosaur movie—”

“Sam is helping your Papa deliver the baby, Lincoln. You gotta stay with us.”

“Deliver it where?”

“When we’re talking about babies, _deliver_ just means...um, _get it out._ ”

“Oh.”

“So can we go inside? Maybe you and Papa can talk about what happened.”

Lincoln pushes harder against him as Steve makes his way through Cho’s old laboratory. He’s getting pretty desperate to escape. Must have been quite a fight — Steve’s surprised Bucky hadn’t said more about it.

“Daddy, no — he’s gonna yell at me!”

“Why do you think he’s gonna yell at you, Lincoln? What’d you do?”

“I...um, I put too many blankets on him.”

“Baby, he’s not going to yell at you for that,” Steve says, laughing it off and opening the door to the delivery room.

“Okay, but that’s not exactly all that happened—”

Lincoln doesn’t finish the sentence, though. He shuts his mouth the moment he sees Bucky, and his face turns a nauseating, pallid white.

Bucky must have had another rough contraction while Steve was in the hallway. He’s lying on his side at the edge of the bed, with the guardrail lowered to give him easier access to the garbage can. Looks like he got sick again. Sam is sitting behind him, applying as much pressure has he can to the small of Bucky’s back. Bucky looks a little dazed, like he’s still recovering from the spell of vomiting and pain.

Steve lets Lincoln down, now feeling a little reassured by the way he’s staring at his Papa that he’s not going to bolt right back out the door and hide. “You can go say hi to him, baby — he’s okay, I promise.”

Lincoln crosses the room cautiously, approaching the bed like he’s approaching a wild animal, and stops at the foot of it. He reaches up and touches Bucky’s bare feet very gently to get his attention. Bucky’s hand is out and searching for Lincoln’s before he can even pry his eyes open.

“Hi, sweetheart,” he smiles. His voice is softer and lower than usual. _He already sounds so tired,_ Steve thinks. His face has lost a little color since Steve stepped out, and he’s soaked in sweat. But he’ll make it. Steve doesn’t doubt it a bit. “I missed you earlier. Did you get a good nap?”

“I, um...Papa?”

“Uh-huh?” Bucky mumbles, pulling Lincoln up toward him by the hand.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m doing great. I know I might not look so good, though.”

“No, you look really bad.”

Bucky laughs, and looks up at Steve woefully. “Well, I’m going to have the baby really soon, so that’s why I don’t look good,” he chuckles.

“Papa — I know you think that you feel great...but I have a question. It looks like it really hurts and Dad told me how it works and that sounds like it might hurt a little bit. Does it hurt right now?”

“Yeah, baby, but it’s getting better. You see that big screen on the wall? It’s measuring my contractions.”

“Like — with apostrophes?”

Bucky grins. “No, honey, these are muscle contractions. My body is trying to push the baby out, so every couple of minutes, all the muscles in my belly squeeze down really hard so she’ll move lower and lower. When she gets low enough, I’m going to have to work really hard to push her out, and then she’ll be born.”

Steve throws a smile in Sam’s direction. “Did Wilson tell you he spilled the beans?”

Bucky nods. “Yeah — I told you he wouldn’t be able to help himself.”

Sam shakes his head, still pressing down on Bucky’s back. “I keep telling you guys not tell me secrets. That one burned a hole in my pocket for three months. Drove me crazy.”

“Papa...did it hurt all day? Is that why you were grouchy earlier?”

“Yeah, Lincoln. I just wasn’t sure if I was really about to have her today or not, so I didn’t wanna get your hopes up.”

“You were hurting really bad _all day?”_ Lincoln reiterates, and Steve can already hear that quaver in his voice that means tears are coming. Lincoln doesn’t cry often, but when he does, Steve and Bucky both about lose their minds. Hearing that boy be sad is always torture. Bucky hears it, too. He pushes himself up against the raised headrest and pulls Lincoln into the bed with him, already looking like he wants to cry, himself. The way Lincoln’s face crumples and the hand he throws up to cover his streaming eyes and the way he lets himself be guided instantly and passively into Bucky’s lap — it’s enough to make Steve’s throat ache, too.

“I didn’t know it was gonna hurt really bad!”

“Oh, baby doll, it’s okay,” Bucky laughs, patting his son’s back, steady and firm and fast, just like he used to do when Lincoln was fussing in the middle of the night. “Having a baby is really painful, and it’s a little scary — but it’s normal. And I’ve done it before, so I’m not scared. Don’t you be scared.”

“But it hurt all day,” Lincoln cries. He’s just about inconsolable. “I’m sorry. I'm really, really sorry, Papa.”

“Baby, what is it? What are you sorry for?”

“Because I got mad that you and me didn't do anything together today and I was mad that you didn't want me to help you feel better,” he pauses, gasping tearfully, “and you didn’t want the blankets I put on top of you, but,” and another big, shaking breath, “but also I was having some mean feelings, ‘cause I got scared—”

“Honey, what were you scared of?”

“Because all the new baby ever does is make you get sick and act mad at me, and you can’t pick me up like you used to and I was pretty sure...that…I didn’t want her to come live with us.” The last few words are nearly lost in sobs.

Steve hurries over and takes a seat on the bed beside the two of them, ready to transfer Lincoln into his own lap if holding him gets too hard during the next contraction. But he doesn’t seem to want anyone except Bucky. He flattens himself against Bucky’s chest and buries his face in the crook of his neck.

“But now that I know that her name is Brooklyn and she’s _my_ baby sister I feel really, really bad for hating her! And I missed Daddy so I was in a bad mood, but mostly...mostly I just didn’t want the baby to come live with us because I wanted everything to go back the way it was when you didn’t feel bad all time...but I didn’t mean to call you a asshole and I’m really sorry.”

 _Oh. So that’s what he didn’t want to tell me,_ Steve realizes. _Bless his fucking heart._

“Baby, it’s _okay,”_ Bucky insists. The chart on the monitor is registering another contraction already, and the pressure is climbing fast, but Steve doesn’t see or hear any sign of pain from Bucky, except for the fresh beads of sweat gathering on his forehead. Somehow, he’s bouncing Lincoln on his legs and rocking him, like it was all the easiest thing in the world. “It’s okay. We both had a rough day today, huh? Come on, baby. Settle down,” he soothes him, pressing his lips to the top of Lincoln’s head. “You’re alright.”

“But you’re mad at me,” Lincoln whispers pitifully.

“I’m not mad at you, sweetheart.”

“But you look mad.”

“That’s just the way his face is, Slim, he can’t help it.”

Steve throws a withering glance in Sam’s direction.

“Lincoln,” Steve interjects, settling down closer to the two of them on the bed and rubbing his son’s back. “Sometimes, we get upset and say things we don’t mean. It happens to everybody. That doesn’t make it right, but you said you’re sorry, and Papa forgives you. No more worrying about it, okay?”

“Do you say you’re sorry whenever you call Papa ‘asshole,’ too?”

Steve feels the blood drain from his face with embarrassment. “Is that where you heard that?”

“Yeah.”

Bucky saves Steve the need for a shame-filled reply to that. He tilts Lincoln back in his arms a little, so he can look at his face. “I was kind of an asshole today, buddy. I’m really sorry, too. You forgive me?”

“Uh-huh. Why does having a baby have to hurt?”

Bucky seems to give that a lot of thought. Either that, or he can’t talk anymore. His IUP is up to 70 mmHg and the contraction hasn’t even peaked. He’s got to be feeling that. Still, he doesn’t stop rocking Lincoln, and he keeps his breathing even. Steve’s never been so in awe, or so in love.

“Did you show Daddy your tooth?”

“No, I forgot. But I don’t want to show him right now because my face is so puffy. Because I cried,” Lincoln whimpers. Really, he’s _still_ crying.

“Well,” Bucky says, and at an IUP of 75 mmHg, Steve can finally hear the strain in his voice and see the way the muscles in his jaw are clenching, even though his easy tone doesn’t change. “Lincoln’s got a loose tooth.”

“You’re kidding me!”

“Nope — bottom one, on the left. Remember how I told you that you could pull it out if you wanted to?”

“Yeah.”

“Remember how I told you if you didn’t stop messing with it when you were supposed to be eating your breakfast that _I_ was gonna yank it out myself?”

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you let me?”

“Because it would hurt! Papa, for real, please don’t yank it out.”

“I’m not going to, sugar. Don’t worry. But you want it to come out eventually, right? Well, it might hurt a little when it comes out. But guess what? Then you’ll have lost your first tooth. And I bet Dad would trade you a nickel for it.”

“Good God,” Sam interjects, rolling back playfully on his seat on the exercise ball. “A nickel. Inflation, Barnes. Inflation.”

“Or a quarter.”

Sam gestures up toward the ceiling with his thumb, signalling Bucky to bid a little higher.

“Might even give you a whole dollar.”

Lincoln sits up. Sam is still trying to silently coax Bucky out of more money, but a dollar was enough to get Lincoln’s attention.

“Not everything that hurts is _bad,_ Lincoln,” Bucky smiles. “Sometimes, we’ve gotta get through things that hurt a lot — but there’s almost always something good waiting for you on the other side, if you can get through it.”

The thought — the _history_ behind that statement isn’t lost on Steve. Not when Bucky says it. The contraction is finally winding down. Lincoln looks from Bucky to Steve and back, then makes a big decision. Bucky’s advice must have made an impression on him, too.

“Papa — do you really wanna yank it out?”

Bucky grins. Steve sees a hint of very real, childish delight in the way he smiles. “Yeah, I _really_ do.”

“And it’ll hurt? But then I get a dollar.”

“You get ten dollars,” Sam cuts in. “Ten’s current market price for a first tooth.”

Steve nods, and then gives Bucky a pleading glance. “I think he’s right, Buck. One dollar ain’t what it used to be.”

“Okay, ten dollars. Lemme pull that sucker out, so I don’t have to watch you play with it anymore.”

Lincoln, looking skeptical and more than a little terrified, opens his mouth and shuts his eyes. Bucky grips the tooth between his thumb and forefinger and, sounding unbelievably delighted, counts, “One...two—”

Steve _knew_ he was going to pull it out on _two_. Lincoln, on the other hand, is pretty surprised.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to AdAstra for beta-ing some chapters for me.
> 
> And special thanks to my mom for beta-reading this one. :) She offered lots of advice concerning The Talk.


	13. Rolling Downhill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone wants a fast labor until they get one.

Lincoln handles the loss of his first tooth pretty well. He cries for a few seconds and shouts at Bucky to put it back, but the crocodile tears quickly become shaky, amazed giggles when Bucky triumphantly drops the tooth in his open palm, and then delighted exclamations when Steve lays two fivers on top of it. Bucky’s glad he didn’t  _ really _ hurt him — for a moment, just after he’d pulled it out, he’d thought Lincoln was going to pass out from the adrenaline rush. It does bleed a little, which means it probably wasn’t  _ quite _ ready to come out, but Bucky didn’t care to watch him fiddle with it during every meal anymore. Made him nauseous as hell.

Sam takes him over to the chair by the bed and gives him a wet paper towel to staunch the bleeding, and they rehash the entire event excitedly as Sam gives out high-fives and handshakes and hugs like they’re going out of style. Within minutes, Lincoln has apparently made a full recovery. Of course, once he’s feeling better, he’s hungry.

“Papa, will it mess up my mouth if I eat?”

“Not if it’s something soft,” Sam graciously answers on his behalf. Bucky’s about due for another contraction — he was up to three every ten minutes last time he checked, and they’re coming like clockwork and getting stronger every time. “Steve, you want me to take him back upstairs to grab some dinner? I can be here in three if you need me.”

“I’d really appreciate it.”

“No problem. I’m getting hungry too, anyway. Macaroni and cheese!” he shouts in Lincoln’s direction.

Lincoln bounces in his seat, cheering along with his godfather. “In the oven!”

“Nope! Out of a box!” Sam’s enthusiasm remains undiminished. 

Lincoln bounces himself right onto his feet. “I love out of a box!”

“Not too picky, is he?” Sam mumbles out the side of his mouth as he passes the bed, hand in hand with Lincoln, who’s hopping along beside him. “I’ll keep an eye on my phone, Cap.”

The room is silent for a moment or two after they leave, and Bucky watches Steve watching the door, loving the little half-smile on his face and knowing full well what he’s going to say.

“We picked a damn good godfather.”

Bucky gives him a wry, cheeky smile. “Wish it didn’t make him do that stupid Brando impression so much but, yeah. He’s something.”

“Don’t you  _ ever _ let him hear you call his Brando impression stupid. It’d break his heart.—So...did you have  _ fun,  _ Buck?” he smirks.

“With what?”

“That tooth would have come out on its own.”

“Been a while since I got to pull a tooth,” he shrugs.

“Oh, yeah,” Steve nods, as if it’s a revelation. “I  _ did _ let you do all the tooth-pulling, didn’t I?”

“Well, we couldn’t let ‘em off themselves in the middle of an interrogation, could we?”

“Yeah, but I seem to remember you had a bad habit of pulling the  _ wrong tooth.” _

“Well, they usually wouldn’t tell me. Just had to guess ‘til I got it right.”

“Man, we sure had some good times.”

The next contraction starts, and even the first few seconds are intense enough to tell Bucky he’d better brace himself. “Steve, I gotta stand up. This is a bad one,” he grunts, already pulling himself off the bed using Steve’s arm for support. God, he can feel this right up into his sides and in his  _ knees.  _ Apparently hurting in one place isn’t enough. This is  _ full-body _ labor.

Steve helps get him on his feet, then takes a firm hold on his hips as he turns back toward the bed. Bucky puts his right knee on the mattress and leaves his left foot on the floor, then bends forward, hoping it’ll open out his hips and help with the restless, maddening cramps in them. Steve holds onto him for the duration of the contraction, rubbing a hand up and down the length of his spine as he rocks forward, staying in constant motion, low, quiet moans forcing their way out of him through a haze of pain. Oh, this is going to be  _ miserable _ when she drops a little lower.

“After this one, we’ve got to start trying to stretch you out a little — you’re gonna end up needing stitches.”

“She’s a cow, Steve,” Bucky groans. “Gonna need ‘em anyway.”

“Don’t call her a cow,” Steve chuckles.

“She’s killing me.”

“Oh, you’re alright. You’re still talking. Take a guess what your MVU is, right now. Don’t look at the CTG.”

“Two-thousand.”

“Close — three hundred twenty.”

Bucky breaks the carefully measured rhythm of breath he’d established. “What?”

“MVU’s 320. Your IUP keeps topping out around eighty, and you’re already at 4 in 10. Highest it ever got with Lincoln was about 300, and I thought you were going to give up the ghost. Now look at you,” he laughs. “You’re getting pretty good at this, Buck.”

“Practice makes perfect,” he grits out, then adds impulsively, “Oh,  _ God, _ I want to hurt you.” Steve just laughs at him, which tells Bucky that any fear he’d once had that Bucky might snap and shoot him or stab him again is long gone. Right now, that’s almost a disappointment. “I just gotta keep thinking about the last time I tried to choke you out. It’s helping.”

“I wouldn’t mind if you choked me again sometime,” Steve answers teasingly, although something tells Bucky that he’s not fucking kidding.

“Steve,” he groans disapprovingly. “Jesus.”

“I’m just saying, you never even  _ asked  _ if I liked it—”

“Don’t flirt with me right now!” he practically shouts. The contraction is peaking and he can’t even bring himself to look up at the screen. He doesn’t want to know what the pressure’s like in there. “Oh God—oh  _ holy shit _ — _ goddamnit _ —I don’t ever wanna fuck again, God,  _ ah _ — _ ah _ — _ ” _

There are a few seconds of nothingness — deep, mind-altering, transcendent pain — and his ears ring too sharply to hear even his own voice.

And then, just like that, the pain washes away, and the euphoria hits him — the kind of bliss he’s only ever felt when he gets from a moment of normalcy during a period of prolonged agony. Steve’s still holding onto him, anchoring him to reality. He catches his breath. “I’m okay,” he pants raggedly. “I’m okay.”

“Sorry I made a pass at you,” Steve chuckles. “You’re just so gorgeous.”

“Oh, I’ll fuckin’ bet I am.”

“You are.”

“Seven centimeters dilated,” Friday chimes in softly. “Steve, there’s mineral oil on the counter. Bucky’s officially in transitional labor now, so you should definitely apply some lubrication before he starts pushing.”

“Yeah, I was doing that,” Steve replies flatly. He never does like it when Friday tells him what to do, but Bucky’s thankful for the program at the moment. It’s nice to know she’s there to tell them if something doesn’t look right.

Steve soaks down a washcloth and grabs the container of oil on his way back to the bed. Bucky has managed to sit up, and takes the cloth to drape over his neck, sighing when the cold water hits his overheated skin. “What time is it?”

“Twenty after ten,” Friday whispers, saving Steve a glance at his phone.

“I bet I’ve got her out before midnight,” Bucky huffs, shaking his head incredulously. “This is moving pretty quick.”

“It could stall,” Steve reminds him. “Here,” he adds, holding up the mineral oil. “Get somewhere comfortable so I can stretch you out a little.”

“Well, aren’t you just in a hurry to get your fingers in me,” he laughs, stacking a few pillows together and jamming them between his knees as he lets himself fall onto his side on the bed.

“Who’s flirting now?”

Steve puts on a glove, just to be safe, even though Bucky probably isn’t all that susceptible to any bacteria his hands might introduce. The baby’s probably not, either, for that matter. He works two fingers in easily, rotating them to spread the lubrication everywhere he can, but it still stings a little. And that brings a fresh wave of apprehension.  _ Two fingers _ sting when they stretch him out. How the hell did he ever push out an entire  _ baby? _ He doesn’t ever  _ remember _ what that felt like, come to think of it — actually pushing Lincoln’s head and shoulders free. Granted, he’s about to get a visceral reminder in the next few hours.

Steve adds a third finger a little too quickly, and the burning worsens predictably. He breathes through it, trying to somehow utilize the pain’s presence, to make himself believe that it’s normal and easy, so that when it’s  _ bad,  _ it’s at least not a shock. He imagines the width of three of Steve’s fingers, and then thinks back to how big Lincoln had been at ten pounds, three days after he was born, and for a few seconds, he’s actually afraid to  _ do _ this. And he knows he  _ has _ to. He knows there’s no choice, at this point. It will feel however it feels, and it  _ will _ feel unbearable, but there will be no stopping it — no way but forward and through.

Steve rotates his fingers a little, trying to be gentle, but Bucky tenses anyway, wishing for the first time that they could conceivably give him enough lidocaine to take the edge off without it risking it affecting Brooklyn — even if it’s only a  _ small _ risk, it’s one he has no desire to take. And however much he dislikes pain, he hates numbness far, far more.

“Am I hurting you?”

Bucky reaches back to pat the hand that Steve is resting lovingly on his hip, trying to put enough steadiness behind his voice to make it reassuring. “No.”

* * *

 

Ten minutes and four excruciating contractions later, and Bucky has lost the ability to make conversation. Steve asks him a few more times if he’s stretching him out too much, if he’s thirsty, if he needs anything at all, but Bucky has buried his face in the pillow he’s hugging to his chest, and his only response is long, keening cries. Steve keeps doing what he’s doing, because there’s nothing else he  _ can _ do, no matter how much he wishes he could magically take on all the pain and all the work and leave Bucky with nothing but excitement and joy.

After those four contractions, Bucky finally communicates something to him — unfortunately, forming a coherent sentence seems to have passed outside of the current scope of his ability. He only manages to fling the now body-warm washcloth in Steve’s direction, which splatters wetly against the side of his face.

“You don’t want this anymore?”

Bucky puts one open hand out, indicating that he expect to have it back. Steve jogs over to the sink and soaks it down again, pulling out his phone as he moves, unconscious to the fact that he’s getting mineral oil and probably more than one bodily fluid all over the screen until he tucks it between his ear and shoulder.

“On my way,” Sam answers instantly.

“No, no, actually — can you keep Lincoln up there a little longer? We hit seven centimeters and I think it’d be better if he wasn’t here right now—” The sound of creaking steel followed by a sharp, metallic  _ pop  _ distracts Steve momentarily. Apparently, Bucky had abandoned hugging the pillow in favor of pulling on the lowered guardrail on the edge of the bed. The guardrail lost the fight. “Buck’s a little out of it.”

“Will do.”

Steve hangs up, stows his phone back in his pocket, and comes back with the rag — cold, once again — and a metal thermos full of ice water that he’d brought along. The readout of IUP has dipped, so he tries to get Bucky’s attention quickly. “Buck — drink some water for me. You’re doing so good, baby doll.”

Bucky pushes himself up into a sitting position almost automatically. He doesn’t actually seem  _ conscious, _ but he’s at least glad to have the cool rag back on his neck. He manages to take a few sips of water, too, and Steve has time to inspect the damage to the bed. Bucky had broken the top of the rail like a twig, leaving two razor sharp points of snapped metal cylinder exposed. Steve doesn’t know what else to do to eliminate the hazard, so he yanks the whole rail off and sets it in the corner. He’s sure it’ll feel like a trophy, once Brooklyn is born.

There’s another creak and snap — this one higher pitched and sudden — followed by the sound of water hitting the tile floor. And there’s what used to be his thermos, wadded up like paper in Bucky’s prosthetic hand. Bucky doesn’t look too sorry about it — he’s bent forward, rocking almost mindlessly as his IUP hovers between 98 and 99, groans crescendoing into low, furious shouts when the graph occasionally spikes to 101.

Steve throws a towel down on the wet floor and pries the crumpled thermos out of Bucky’s hand, placing it next to the guardrail in the corner. When he comes back to the bedside, offering Bucky both his hands to hold and squeeze instead, Bucky uses them as leverage to stand up. He throws his arms around Steve’s neck and locks them there, trapping Steve in an embrace so powerful that he can barely breathe.

“Baby, I’ve gotcha,” Steve promises, holding Bucky’s body steady against him, just in case his legs give out. “Keep breathing, sweetheart. She’ll be here soon. She’s gonna be here and all this is gonna seem like nothing.”

Another contraction builds, and Steve can hear it in the pattern of Bucky’s breath even before it shows on the CTG readout. Bucky leans back a little and braces his hands against Steve’s chest, like he wants to push him over. Steve sets his own feet a little wider, and pushes right back against Bucky to provide some resistance. He’s less likely to give out than the wall, anyway.

The cervical dilation measurement on the screen catches his eye as the number briefly flashes green. “There’s eight centimeters, Buck, you’re doing it,” he assures him. “Come on — come on, baby. Keep moving her down.”

Two more contractions like that, and Steve is sweating, too. Sometimes he forgets that Bucky’s every bit as strong as he is — luckily, it’s an easy thing to forget because it’s been so long since Bucky tried to kill him. God, he’s lucky to have  _ survived.  _ The towel he’d thrown down to soak up the spilled water is conveniently positioned under Bucky’s feet when a few more rushes of amniotic fluid trickle down his thighs, pink with blood. The readout on the screen has shot up to nine centimeters by the next time Steve looks up at it.

“Nine centimeters and it’s only 10:40,” Friday pipes up softly, sounding strangely impressed for a disembodied voice. “Looks like he might win his bet, after all.”

That seems to put a little life back in Bucky. Finally, he’s able to stand up a little straighter during a break between labor pains and stretch out his legs.

“Can I have some water?”

“Yeah, let me find you a cup, since you decided to kill my nice thermos,” Steve laughs, helping him sit back down on the edge of the bed.

“What?”

Steve finds him a plastic cup from beside the sink and fills it, pointing to the destroyed items in the corner as evidence.

“I don’t even remember doing that.”

“You know,” he chuckles, turning back toward Bucky and handing him the water. “That can’t be your excuse every time you break something.”

“Oh, God — look at this,” Bucky laughs weakly, pulling his sweat-drenched shirt away from his chest. “Grab me a gown or a different shirt or something. There’s milk, just — fucking  _ everywhere.  _ Fuck.”

Steve gets him into a fresh hospital gown just in time for another contraction. Bucky rolls onto the bed and moves onto his hands and knees, rocking again, and as it builds and peaks he lays his face down on his arms. Thankfully, he doesn’t break anything this time — just screams himself hoarse. Steve tries to rub his back and his hips, but Bucky shouts for him to stop, so Steve paces instead. The next few minutes, he does nothing but pace and chew his thumbnail down to nothing, and watches Bucky rock back and forth, arch and round his back, grip the sheets and clench his fists. Bucky’s shouts climb in pitch and volume and the rocking and swaying become almost frantic, and the screen’s dilation readout flashes green again, now highlighting the words  _ Fully effaced _ rather than a number.

Twenty seconds after the dilation measurement changes, almost like clockwork, Bucky’s agonized, raging shouts drop into his chest and become that beautiful, long, deep hum that crackles brokenly in his raw throat. The rocking stops, the swaying stops, his face relaxes and his jaw unclenches, and he rests his forehead in his open hands. His hips drop low to nestle tight against his heels, and the whole atmosphere of the room seems to shift from chaos and anguish and worry to focus, anticipation, and something deeply, powerfully inevitable.

Steve sends Sam a text on his way over to Bucky’s side.

_ Fully dilated and pushing _

_ Better get up here _

He gets an instant reply of  **YES** , and then leans over to place a hand on Bucky’s bicep, gripping it encouragingly. Bucky gropes clumsily for Steve’s hand, then holds it loosely, almost like he’s in a trance-state. His entire body and all its resources are dedicated to moving Brooklyn down, now, and there’s nothing left to squeeze Steve’s hand with. “Almost there, baby,” he smiles. He’s not even sure which one of them he’s talking to. “You’re so close.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen, y'all.
> 
> First of all, you guys left some comments on this past chapter that just...moved me. Deeply. Some were about the same length as the chapter was, and they were just filled with sweetness and love, and I just need you to know how full my heart is.
> 
> Secondly - dearest, most precious friend, Dee: you know what you did. <3 Thank you for sending Steve and Bucky to my house all the way from their home in NY to help me write. They sign off on every chapter.


	14. When You Think of Love

The bleeding starts just before Sam arrives.

Bucky is floating on an incandescent adrenaline high just after the contraction ends. He hadn’t tried to push — he hadn’t even been thinking about it, and he definitely hadn’t _wanted_ to. If he’d had any choice, he would have loved to sleep for a solid hour, first.

So far, this transition had been the most incredible pain he’d ever felt in his life. Awesome, in the biblical sense. The difference between moving ten pounds and seven when it’s a _baby_ is more than he was prepared for, and he’d prepared himself for as much as he could imagine. Fortunately, his body seems to be doing it all on its own, deciding without the help of his mind or will when he’ll push, when he’ll rest, when he’ll breathe, what sounds he can make, and how he should move. At this point, he’s starting to feel like he’s just along for the ride.

Letting everything go, relinquishing his will to something entirely physical — it makes it easier. He doesn’t have to feel ashamed in front of Steve — or Sam, for that matter — and he can move and scream and sob all he wants. He can ask for what he needs and get it.

He likes being able to let this _happen_ . It means more to him, now that he can remember the other times — the times he’d been cuffed to the bed rails, the tightness of the straps around his thighs and calves and the way their buckles had dug in, the ache in his heels from the unforgiving metal stirrups that held his cold feet. _Jesus —_ the pain in his hips, after uncountable hours lying on his back with nothing but a thin layer of padding between him and the table. The fatigue and wrongness of pushing when they had said _push._ The hatred and rage that came with being treated as an instrument of some fascist’s greater plan, as a trophy, an exhibit, a vessel to hold something he wouldn’t even be allowed to _touch._ The shame when their gloved fingers had pulled and kneaded and pinched and twisted at his chest. The fear of all the old consequences, every time they had shouted for his silence. The shock when they had used the scissors — the _sound of them_ when they bit _—_ and the shivering chill of forceps against the fresh wound. The drug-haze. The smell of blood — too heavy in the air to retain that light, coppery scent; no, this was thick and saturating, like an old slaughterhouse, and he was the vacant-eyed, obedient livestock following his handlers to the killing floor. The dark, empty room...and the _quiet_ that was always waiting for him when it was all over. Afterward, he would dream about the way they cried, night after night. Those several seconds of sweet, gorgeous wails just before the cords were cut, while they were still _his._ Then, the clamp would close and the physical connection would be severed, and they would be Hydra’s. Not his. They would take them _somewhere —_ another room, far away from where he slept, where he couldn’t hear the crying, and so those first cries would repeat again and again until they chased the memories away with electrical currents. After the electricity, the sound of the cries were still there, like mosquitos buzzing in his ear, but there would be no connection. Just a little phantom noise that plagued him from time to time.

He wishes he could tell Steve all of this right now — and he _would_ tell him. He wouldn’t have talked about it a few years ago, but now there’s really no secret worth keeping between the two of them. But right now, he can hardly talk, much less verbalize the triumph of freedom and the joy of being _loved_.

“Thanks,” he says, the moment he can shape his mouth into a word. Steve has been holding his hand, although he barely remembers the moment Steve had clasped it. Finally, he can give it a squeeze and turn his face away from the mattress to smile up at him. He knows he must look like hell warmed over, but Steve doesn’t look like he cares, so Bucky is resolved not to care, either.

Steve smiles back — pride and sympathy and tenderness all visible in the subtle shape of his expression. “I didn’t do anything, baby. You’re doing this all on your own.”

“I was just thinking…” he pants, still trying to get a full breath. “You just make this so nice. You...and everybody.”

“Didn’t exactly look nice a few seconds ago. Looked pretty bad.”

“Nicer than Hydra,” Bucky says sincerely, only realizing after he says it that it sounds ridiculous.

Steve’s smile tightens. He looks like he’s trying not to laugh. Bucky had phrased it a little too bluntly. “Well, Buck, I try,” is his flat response. Bucky resolves to explain himself more thoroughly later. “Sam and Lincoln are on their way up. Told him to let Lincoln finish eating his macaroni.”

He uses what’s bound to be a brief reprieve to push himself up to a sitting position on the edge of the bed, right next to Steve, and Steve moves to sit just behind him, hands finding the tensest muscles in his back and shoulders and rubbing them with the kind of force and steadiness that only Steve’s fingers can manage. Bucky leans back into it, loving it more and more as he coaxes Steve to put more force behind the backrub.

Sitting up might have been the wrong course of action.  It seems to force Brooklyn down a little, and that causes something like an ache to start, right around his perineum. For a moment, it radiates a low-grade pain, and then there’s a twinge — almost like a dislocated joint — that’s so intense and sudden that it makes him gasp, makes every muscle on his body go rigid.

Steve has worked his way to the seam of Bucky’s prosthetic shoulder and he startles when he hears Bucky’s gasp, pulling his hands away like he’d set them down on a hotplate. “Shit, sorry — did I hit the metal?”

“No — no, I just got this — fuck, it’s _still_ happening…”

“Cramp?”

“No, just a sharp pain. Really _fucking_ sharp pain,” Bucky does his best to verbalize it, but he doesn’t currently have the patience or capacity to be accurate. Cold sweat prickles at his temples as Steve comes to stand in front of him, placing his hands protectively on each side of his belly.

“Where?”

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” he groans, pitching forward. “Feels like I just got hit in the _balls_ , Steve. Hit _hard._ Kicked — _ah, fuck, ow._ Seriously, _exactly_ like that.”

“Bet she’s hitting a nerve on the way down.” Steve takes him by the forearms to steady him, and starts to help him up. “Here, let’s try changing positions and—”

Steve’s voice tapers swiftly into silence. Bucky winces as he stands, the ache in the floor of his pelvis flaring up to his navel and back to his tailbone, and he has to grip Steve’s shoulders for support. Usually, Steve helps him as a courtesy — as a show of tenderness. Now, Bucky would be flat on his ass without it.

“Baby, you’re bleeding.”

 _Yeah, of course I am,_ Bucky thinks, then turns to see the white and cream blankets and the sanitary pad on the bed, just as he feels the rivulets beginning to trail down his thighs. There’s more than he’d thought there would be. There might be more than there _should_ be. One step backward is all it takes, and a fresh flow of blood coats his legs, runs in little rivers to his knees, soaks the insides of his ankles and pools beneath the arches of his bare feet.

Bucky had certainly anticipated a harder labor this time — he had expected some tearing and more than a little bleeding, given Brooklyn’s size. He heaves a tired sigh that hitches on the start of another labor pain that’s building quickly, but he’s not particularly worried by it. Steve, of course, is _very_ worried about it.

“That didn’t happen last time, Buck,” he says, voice low, like he wants to sound calm for Bucky’s benefit. He doesn’t sound calm. “I think we should call Bruce.”

“No, it’s fine,” Bucky replies shortly, lowering himself horizontally across the bed so he can try lying on his side again. And then he’s pushing. Doesn’t matter that the conversation’s not over — his body’s done focusing on other things. It’s completely unavoidable and reflexive, just as necessary as blinking or breathing, and as unintentional as a hiccup. But _God_ it feels better than the contractions had felt before that urge took hold of him.

With Lincoln, he could rest in the middle of a contraction if he was tempted. He could decide, to a certain extent, when to push and when to rest, but that would be impossible right now. He couldn’t slow down if he tried. Oddly enough, he likes _this_ better. He doesn’t feel stuck. This is going to be over fast, one way or another.

“Buck — you’re still bleeding—”

“Yeah,” he responds shortly.

“Okay, Sam’s on his way, baby—”

“Shut up.” That’s all the breath he has to waste on speaking. He hates to be so plain about it, but he can’t listen to Steve’s frantic, nervous bullshit right now. It’s a ten pound baby. There’s going to be blood. Back in the 20s, when his own mother had delivered Rebecca in her bed at home, with only his Aunt Rachel there to help, while his father smoked a pack of cigarettes just outside the bedroom door, a baby of that size was likely to kill a woman, but she made it through just fine. And Becky was was ten pounds _and change._ Everything is better these days, anyway — medicine, technology, diet, his own _body,_ which is immune to practically any infection under the sun. He needs to concentrate right now. Not fret like a fucking schoolgirl.

“Bucky, maybe you should slow down—”

“Fuck, Steve!” Bucky gasps out furiously. His temper flares right along with the pain, and he loses what little control he’d had over himself. “Quit being such a fucking pussy. Jesus!” he groans, just before he well and truly forgets how to make words.

And Steve does finally shut up, but the way he shifts his weight from one foot to the other and those sharp little exhales through his nose and the bouts of pacing means he’s not too happy about it. The moment the maddening, all-consuming urge to push is gone, the sharp pain is back and it’s doubled in intensity. What’s more, his sense of remorse seems to have returned along with it — and here come the goddamn tears. _Fuck,_ he hates prolactin.

“MVU’s up to 330,” Steve laughs quietly. He really ought to be angry, and yet here he is, sweet and sympathetic as ever. _Goddammit._ Bucky’s chest and throat ache like he’s suffocating, and the tears well up hotter and bigger than ever. “Buck, jeez...” Steve croons, clasping Bucky’s hand as he reaches for him, pulling him back up off the mattress to lean against his chest. He’s making it _worse_ with all this sentimental bullshit. Bucky’s moved beyond tears now to _active_ crying. “What is it?”

“You’re still being nice,” Bucky answers, knowing it explains nothing.

“What do you want me to do? Punch you?” Steve snorts.

Bucky’s ears are ringing too loudly to hear the door, but Sam and Lincoln must have walked in just as Steve had said that.

“Daddy — um, did you hit him?”

“Oh my God, Lincoln, no. I did not hit your papa,” Steve snorts, his laughter jostling Bucky’s head where it’s still pressed against his abdomen.

“Is Papa crying?” Lincoln whispers.

“It’s the hormones,” Sam explains as he washes his hands and snaps on a pair of gloves. “They make him kind of crazy.”

“Why?”

“That’s what hormones do to everybody, Slim.”

Steve catches Sam by the elbow as he approaches the bed and pulls him close into their huddle. “Got some bleeding. I don’t know what to do.”

Sam nods calmly. “Banner’s been texting me every couple of minutes. I probably learned enough to be an obstetrician.” He raises his voice a little, looking up toward the ceiling. “Friday, you got any updates on his uterus? How’s that doing?”

“I would have alerted Dr. Banner of a uterine rupture — any tearing on his perineum?”

“No,” Steve answers.

“Might be cervical, then. Sam, would you like me to talk you through a procedure to check for cervical tears?”

“No,” Sam laughs humorlessly. “I’ve got that one down. I’ve only done it in an ambulance speeding down a backroad in Virginia, but I think I can adjust alright to not having potholes,” he nods, giving Bucky a reassuring smile.

“What can I do?” Steve asks immediately.

“Depending on how bad this bleed is, I might send you across the hall to get me a few IV bags. Barnes, you alright with being in stirrups for a couple minutes?” Sam winces, smile turning sympathetic as he reached out to squeeze Bucky’s shoulder.

That’s a rare gesture, from Sam. Bucky’s just glad he’s managed to get the sobbing under control. “I’ve been in stirrups once a week for four months, but I appreciate being asked.”

“Hi, Lincoln!”

“Hey, Ms. Friday.”

Steve looks nervous. “What are we gonna do with him?” he says softly, looking from Bucky to Sam and back. “I mean, he knows what’s happening now, but I’m not sure I want him seeing all the blood.”

Whatever solution there is to be had, Bucky knows they’ll need to find it quickly. His brief period of rest is very nearly over. He shifts down to the end of the bed while Sam drops the footboard and slides out the leg-stirrups. “Lincoln — come up here and sit with me for a minute.”

“Why?” Lincoln asks, as he climbs up anyway.

“Sam’s gonna check on how your sister’s doing.”

“Will it...is it going to hurt?”

“Yeah,” Bucky replies honestly. “I think I might need you to hold my hand.”

And suddenly, Lincoln looks a foot taller. All of his shyness and apprehension and discomfort with the strange room and the unfamiliar, frightening situation evaporates instantly, and his expression becomes serious in a way Bucky’s not sure he’s ever seen on his little boy. He’s never looked so much like Steve.

The contraction gains intensity just as Sam helps him fit his knees into the stirrups and throws a blanket over his legs so neither Lincoln nor Bucky will see the metal tools or the blood. There’s sweat beading on Bucky’s forehead again already, and his breaths are coming faster and harder, despite his best efforts to look unaffected for his son’s sake. Lincoln doesn’t seem upset by it, though. He takes Bucky’s right hand in both of his and squeezes his thumb as hard as he can with one hand, stroking Bucky’s knuckles soothingly with the other.

“Do you maybe need Daddy to hold your hand, too?” he asks, glancing uncertainly toward Steve, who’s looking on with surprise and admiration.

“Mm—no,” Bucky hums breathlessly, shaking his head and gripping Lincoln’s hand as gently as he can. “Just you.”

Lincoln lights up like morning sunshine breaking through clouds and settles in next to Bucky’s side, like he has no intention of moving until this is all over. Bucky is already pushing again, and Lincoln watches his face with sweet concern now — none of the fear Bucky had seen back at the apartment. “Papa, remember, it’s okay if it hurts,” he assures him. “You’re doing a really good job.” Bucky’s vision is a little hazy, but he doesn’t miss the quick, contemplative glance Lincoln throws at the pocket of his own t-shirt. He sits up straighter, squeezes Bucky’s hand harder, and says, “And if you, um, if you get the baby out...I’ll give you ten dollars.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I'm sure many of you already noticed, I posted a one-shot tie-in to this story, in which Bucky finds out he's pregnant. If you haven't read it yet, [here it is!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14985815)


	15. Foot on the Pedal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky has been in labor since six in the morning. And he's not going to put up with another minute of it.

Bucky had steeled himself for _agony_ from the internal exam. He didn’t want a speculum anywhere near him right now, and he didn’t want to lie on his back, and he didn’t want to be stuck in leg rests.

Luckily, Sam is _remarkably_ gentle and efficient with the whole process. Bucky had never minded Helen’s exams and Bruce had certainly never bothered him — they were both competent and careful. But they were researchers at heart, and by practice. Sam’s only medical experience was in caring for people directly, and even though Bucky would never tell Bruce or Helen, that makes a _huge_ difference.

Anyway, compared to the labor pain he’s in the middle of, the momentary burn of the speculum or retractor or _whatever’s_ inside him opening might as well be a bee-sting. He’s only aware of the warmth of the lamp Sam has placed a few inches away from him, and the occasional chill of metal when the forceps brush against him, guiding the light strokes of gauze as Sam swabs away the blood obscuring his view of the damage. There’s only aching and pressure, but Lincoln squeezes his hand a little harder every time his breath hitches, and Steve is letting him rest his bare foot against his chest, rubbing his calf distractedly as he watches Sam work.

“You’re doing so good, Buck,” Steve whispers. “Don’t hold your breath.”

Bucky can’t say so at the moment, but he _does_ appreciate the reminder. The moment he exhales, that low, long groan escapes along with the pent-up air from his lungs, and the tension leaves his chest and shoulders and moves down into his belly again.

“Daddy, can you see her yet?”

“Kind of,” Steve laughs, clearly enthralled by whatever he’s looking at, even though Bucky can only imagine that the view is grotesque and mortifying. “She’s trying to come out and meet you — I can see the outline of her head.”

“What’s she look like?”

“I don’t know yet, sugar.”

“I hope she looks like...maybe like Sam.”

Thankfully, Sam is skilled enough to maintain a steady hand while laughing. Even Bucky, still pushing and groaning and trying to remember to take a breath in occasionally, finds himself grinning. “I _am_ good-looking,” he chuckles. “But I think your Daddy might have some questions if Brooklyn came out with a tan.”

The urge to push fades and Bucky’s body seems to enter some kind of rest-mode — all of his muscles go slack and a tingling sensation passes through his limbs. But once that urge is gone... _then_ he can feel the speculum. And it hurts. His inhales drag frantically through in throat, and he feels like he might hyperventilate, except that he doesn’t even have the energy to _panic._

“Papa, you gotta breathe slower.”

Bucky nods and does his best to follow his son’s instructions. He knows he’s told Lincoln the same thing a few times, when he’d been crying himself into a fit over a banged head or smashed fingers or a badly skinned elbow.

A few more stinging swipes of the gauze and the click of a pen-light, followed by a little ambient heat from its bulb, and Sam withdraws the forceps and begins to relax the speculum’s jaws. Bucky remembers to breathe slowly right up until the moment Sam slides it out, when he has to clench his teeth and squeeze Lincoln’s poor hand harder than he’d like to be squeezing it. But then it’s over.

“Okay, so there _is_ some bleeding around your cervix,” Sam sighs, disposing of the bloodied gloves. “And it looked bad while you were pushing, but once the contraction was over and she slid back a little, it looked totally normal. Lateral tears — three o’clock and nine o’clock. Pretty much everybody gets them with a baby this size. Right now, I don’t think it’d even need stitches, but it’s probably going to tear a little more before you’re done — Bruce will probably just do a few of the dissolvable stitches right after she’s born, or I can do them if he talks me through it. You can lose a lot more blood before you’re in real trouble, so just let us know if you start feeling tingly or cold or light-headed.”

Steve pulls him into a spontaneous hug as Sam tries to walk past him. “Oh man, I’m so glad you’re here.”

Sam snorts as he and Steve help Bucky down out of the leg-rests. “I’m no Prissy, Cap. I know a little bit about what I’m doing.”

Bucky laughs, indescribably relieved to have his legs back out of those stupid stirrups. “Oh God, not that movie...they showed that once a week when I was overseas. Scarlett was such a f—” He glances over to Lincoln, who’s still holding his hand, waiting expectantly for the end of his sentence. “Well, she _shouldn’t_ have slapped that lady.”

“Made us all real glad when _Henry V_ came out,” Steve nods.

“Papa? I want to tell you something.”

“Huh.”

“You sound kind of like a cow when you’re pushing her out.”

Sam makes a high-pitched whine, just to let Bucky know how _badly_ he wants to laugh and how valiantly he’s struggling not to voice some smart-ass comment. Probably about the fact that he _looks_ like one, too.

“He does kind of moo, huh?” Steve giggles. _That prick._

“Yeah, or — or he also kind of sounds like a zombie, a little bit.”

Steve puts his hands on his hips, tapping his fingers almost threateningly. “Samuel, you been showing my five-year-old scary movies again?”

“We literally watched the _Thriller_ video, man. I can’t _not_ show my godson _Thriller._ It’s my job.”

“Steve — can you walk me to the bathroom?” Bucky mumbles, feeling too tired to get there on his own.

“Yeah, if Lincoln will let me borrow you.”

“Oh, I gotta have Slim in here,” Sam insists. “We’re gonna clean up this bed and then we’re gonna use this Doppler to try to hear ourselves digesting macaroni.”

“Yes!” Lincoln shouts, bouncing on the mattress.

“Don’t let him get blood on himself,” Bucky pleads as Steve helps him roll off the mattress. “Or anything else.”

“Lincoln, don’t touch anything that looks nasty,” Sam orders.

Lincoln rolls his eyes. “I wasn’t even going to try to touch anything nasty. I’m not dumb, you guys. I know not to touch nasty stuff.”

Ten minutes later, and Bucky still hasn’t managed to make it back to the bed. He’s completely given up on preserving his dignity or his modesty: his sweat-soaked shirt has been tossed disdainfully on the floor and he’s sitting on the toilet, naked, with his arms locked around Steve’s legs and his his face buried right in Steve’s crotch. He’s probably pressing his forehead against him a little too hard, but Steve is generous enough not to complain. Bucky probably wouldn’t move even if he _did_ complain.

Steve has been running a cold washcloth up and down his back for the last few contractions and getting him water to drink in between, and he’s happy right where he is.

After a few more minutes in a seated, squatting position, gravity does the trick, and he gets a _really_ good contraction. The sharp ache he’d felt earlier grips him again, from his tailbone all the way around to his belly. It’s enough to break the pattern of long moans and quick inhales and make him shout and cry in earnest. He has to reach up to clutch at the hem of Steve’s shirt and dig his heels into the floor just to get through it.

Steve swivels his weight slowly from side to side, rocking Bucky right along with him. “I know, sweetheart. I know,” he whispers over and over again, pressing to rag into the back of Bucky’s neck to cool him down. “I know. It hurts. I’ve gotcha.”

“Steve, _oh God, oh God—”_

“I know, Bucky. She’s coming. Just hang in there.”

“Steve—”

“You’re doing it, baby. She’ll be right here.”

“—oh my God, Steve, Steve, _Steve—”_ And once he starts saying Steve’s name, he can’t seem to stop. His voice drops to a rasping whisper and the repetitions begin to bleed together, but it’s all he can say. It’s the only word he knows.

“I’m right here,” Steve answers. “Hold on to me, baby. I’ve got you. I’ve got you—”

Bucky’s not sure what he’s doing, but he knows he wants Steve closer. As close as possible. He pulls him down by the fabric of his shirt until Steve finally takes the hint and kneels down between his legs, where Bucky can wrap his arms around his neck and rest his head on his shoulder, and feel Steve’s cool cheek against his overheated neck.

“Two kids,” Steve chuckles, when Bucky finally gets enough of a break to pull in a couple full breaths. “Man, I think we’ve got ourselves a family,”

“Yeah,” Bucky sighs, words spilling out of him before he can think, like he’s drunk or drugged. “And we’re pretty good dads...I _think_ we’re pretty good dads.”

Steve’s laughter shakes them both. “If Lincoln’s anything to go by, we are _great_ fucking dads.”

“Best dads.”

“I’d put money on it.”

“Even though I broke his arm that one time?”

“He doesn’t even remember that, baby.”

Suddenly, Bucky’s crying again, but he’s long past caring. “I still feel so goddamn bad about that,” he gasps. “He was — Steve, he was so _little—”_

“He took the cover out of the power outlet, Bucky,” Steve consoles him. “I am _so_ glad you jerked his ass away from it.”

“Steve, I _broke his arm.”_

“It healed up alright, didn’t it? And he didn’t get electrocuted. I woulda done the same thing.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t wanna wait so long next time…”

“For what?” Steve mumbles absently, still rocking back and forth, guiding Bucky along with him.

“I don’t wanna wait five years for another one...just seems like...such a big gap…”

Steve stops rocking him and goes rigidly still. He takes him by the shoulders and leans back to get a look at his face, like he’s suddenly afraid it’s not _Bucky_ he’s holding at all. “You wanna have _another one?”_ he whispers harshly, as if he’s never heard something more absurd in his life. “After _this?_ Are you—what the _hell_ are you...Are you serious?”

“Yeah, I think...I mean, I think I’m getting good at it,” he pants. _Here we go again._

“Baby, I think you might be delirious.”

“You’re never gonna fuck me again after this, are you…’cause I look like garbage.”

“Oh, for _God’s_ sake,” Steve snorts. “You are _still_ a looker, Bucky. Stark naked on the toilet, bed-head, and sweating bullets, and you still manage to look great.”

“Thank you.”

“But—listen, Bucky, we don’t have _room_ for another one.”

“Buy a big house,” Bucky says, feeling pretty pleased with himself for having solved Steve’s momentary dilemma. He pulls him back into their tight hug triumphantly. “You got money.”

“OKay, but we don’t have _time_ for—”

“You’re a hundred and two!” Bucky argues, forcing the words out around the groan building in his chest. “Retire and then we can have time to get married...been engaged for five fuckin’ years… _oh, ohmygod, Steve—”_

Steve sighs, patting Bucky’s back almost guiltily. “I know, honey — we gotta get on that.”

He doesn’t keep up that slow exhale for long, this time. His muscles are contracting in shorter bursts, now, pushing raw, ragged breaths out of him every few seconds. He’s aware that Steve is talking him through it, but his voice is becoming a drone in the background, barely audible over the roar of blood and adrenaline in his head.

He loses track of time during the contraction — feels like it goes on forever, and when it ends, it feels like it was over in an instant. He can hear blood trickling down into the water underneath him.

“Daddy?” Lincoln shouts from outside the bathroom door. “Don’t let him...um, please just make sure he doesn’t drop Brooklyn in the toilet.”

Steve must have noticed the change in the strength and pattern of his contractions. They share a brief glance at one another, Steve’s eyes alight with excitement and Bucky’s hazy with exhaustion as he drifts somewhere between determination and resignation.

“Sam! Grab me one of those gowns, man,” he calls out, and Sam’s there with it in an instant. He slides into the bathroom without letting Lincoln get an eye-full, and Bucky gets himself into as fast as he can. He has a feeling this is going to be a short break.

And it is. He only makes it halfway across the room before he’s pushing again, and he has to spend a minute just letting himself hang like dead weight, with one arm around Steve’s shoulders and one arm around Sam’s. He forces himself to groan again and ride out the pain, instead of pushing in sharp, strong bursts. Now, he’s _actually_ nervous that she’ll come right out with no one there to catch her. His perineum isn’t on fire yet, so she probably hasn’t crowned, but the sheer, unbelievable immensity of the pressure in his pelvic floor tells him she’s not far from it.

Lincoln clambers up onto the bed, wearing one of the hospital gowns like a smock. The one with the little Hulk caricatures, of course — that’s his favorite Avenger. He looks elated for a moment, probably sensing that his sister’s just about here, but the second he gets a good look at Bucky, he looks positively horrified.

“Daddy? Dad, there’s a lot of blood on his legs.”

“It’s okay, buddy, having a baby makes you bleed. Papa’s alright.”

“Um — he looks really bad. He looks _really_ bad and there’s a whole bunch of blood everywhere.”

“It’s just the extra blood from inside my belly, honey,” Bucky reassures him, once the pain lets up again. “It’s what made it soft for Brooklyn in there, it’s not gonna hurt me.”

He does his best, with a lot of help from Steve and Sam, to walk the last few feet to the bed on his own. He gets one knee up onto the mattress, then reaches out for Lincoln’s hand. “You gotta help me up here, sweetheart.” Lincoln pulls with all he’s got until Bucky’s back on the bed, resting on his knees and elbows. “Good job — thank you. Okay — alright, grab onto both my hands, baby. Grab on tight.”

“Is it gonna help?” Lincoln asks hopefully.

“Yes, it’s gonna help — you’re gonna help me get her out. Just stay right here with me.”

“Okay!” Lincoln shouts, practically losing his mind as he tries to keep himself from jumping up and down. He’s doing his best to handle this like an adult, but he’s just too eager. Bucky’s never seen him so worked up. “Maybe — well, okay, listen, if I pull on your hands this way while they pull her, um — _that_ way, maybe we can get her unstuck faster—”

“Yeah, pull back on my hands like that — that’ll work—great job, baby, _oh God, okay,_ pull hard—”

Lincoln pulls for all he’s worth, and, amazingly, it actually _does_ give Bucky a little bit of an edge. It seems to help to have something to pull on, and Lincoln’s full weight is just enough leverage to give him something to work against it. It’s a good, productive, slow push that moves Brooklyn down a few more centimeters, and he’s able to maintain the even, constant pressure for a full sixty seconds without taking more than a momentary rest.

Except it doesn’t exactly _stop._

It _changes_ — goes back to those quick, staccato pushes that make him rock back onto his feet, driving them down into the mattress, and growl low in his throat until his voice is hoarse and weak and there’s cold sweat dripping down into his eyes.

Fuck, it’s like being _beaten._ This feels like taking a beating with a _lead pipe._

Takes the same kind of stamina to ride it out, and each time the muscles in his belly clamp down and push her lower, there’s pain and a bruising pressure inside him like the strikes are falling on his low back, then on his sides, between his legs, across his shoulder blades, abdomen, _everywhere,_ and he has no choice but to accept it. Each strike is one strike closer to the end. That’s what he keeps telling himself.

And again, no break. No time to breathe.

It’s been a while since he opened his eyes, and now he’s back in the midst of — _possessed by_ — a long, unabating, airless contraction. He can hear the rustle of the sanitary pad Sam had slid between his open knees and the heavy droplets of blood spattering against it, steady as a a faucet dripping onto ceramic. He knows Lincoln’s still hanging on — he can feel his little hands in his, hear his shoes squeaking against the floor as Bucky pulls him forward and Lincoln resists, leaning all his weight back into his heels like it’s a game of tug-of-war that he intends to win. He can feel Steve’s thumbs, covered with nitrile gloves and mineral oil, digging into the junctures of his thighs and pelvis in a hilariously futile attempt to make the pain more manageable, and there’s warmth and something pressing hard against his perineum — probably Sam with a washcloth, hoping to keep him from tearing right through his own muscles. Steve and Sam might be talking. He’s not sure. If they are, he’s tuned them out.

“Oh my God, Barnes!” Sam laughs, shouting loudly enough that Bucky hears him even through what he can only think to call some kind of pain-trance. “You’re not gonna believe what we can see down here, man! Oh, damn, this is cool—I mean, it’s a compound presentation, so not exactly good, but it’s so cool, Steve, look, quick—”

“What—Oh. Oh my God. Oh my God!”

 _“What—what’s—_ Steve, what’s—oh, oh Jesus — oh, God, get her out—” he begs, not particularly _caring_ what Steve and Sam are shouting about. The contraction _still doesn’t end,_ but Bucky _cannot_ push for another second, which means he’s too exhausted to do something every single cell in his body seems to be screaming for him to do.

He’s never felt this frustrated or enraged or desperate before. He’s never wanted something to end so badly. He’s furious. Fuck, _anything —_ he would give _anything_ for this to end. They can tear him in half if they want to, they can break his bones and pry him open with a goddamn _tire iron_ if that’s what it takes, just _get her out—_

“Steve — um, mirror, counter—”

“Where?”

“Grab that—”

“Got it.”

The pain is worse when he’s not pushing — when he doesn’t have a task, an _action_ to focus on, and he collapses onto his side with a few shocked cries when the ache peaks to an organ-deep, stabbing pang. Lincoln, surprisingly, goes right along with the spontaneous move, and starts grabbing pillows from the top of the bed and shoving them under his head until he has a stack high enough to rest comfortably on.

Bucky hooks his right arm under his knee to hold it against his chest and suddenly he can’t _not_ push anymore. Lincoln rushes back to the bedside with the cold washcloth from the nightstand, and he hasn’t wrung a single _drop_ of the icy water out of it when he drapes it over Bucky’s forehead. It feels so good Bucky wants to give Lincoln another ten dollars for the good idea.

“Lincoln, shut your eyes right now if you don’t wanna see lots of blood,” Steve warns hurriedly, leaning over the bed to lie down against Bucky’s side.

“Dad, what _is that?”_

Apparently, Lincoln had _not_ shut his eyes. Driven by skeptical curiosity, Bucky finally manages to open his own. Steve is looking down — must have been trying to get Bucky’s perspective on the hand-mirror he’s holding between his legs, angling it up so that the reflection is visible to Bucky over the swell of his belly.

“Wait, wait — Buck — push again—”

“I am, Steve, _ah_ —I can’t—not— _push,_ it’s just—fuck, just _—happening—”_ he argues, voice low and guttural and _savagely_ fucking angry.

“Is Brooklyn’s head really wrinkly?” Lincoln asks, clearly horrified. “What is _wrong_ with her?”

“Slim, that’s her fingers!” Sam yells, grinning like he’s won some kind of lottery. “She’s got her hand on top of her head and those are her little bitty fingers right there.”

“Holy shit—” Bucky gasps, then laughs. “Steve! Oh, holy shit—”

“Holy shit,” Lincoln echoes distantly. Bucky has just enough sense to know that his poor son sounds kind of _faint._ Luckily, Steve reaches back to steady him with a hand on his back.

“Oh man, Lincoln!” Steve gushes, with a bright, delighted smile and wide eyes with wet lashes. “How _cool_ is that?”

“No,” Lincoln says decisively, and goes to put some more ice water on the rag.

“Oh, _good_ push, Barnes, nice, keep going, keep going,” Sam cheers, applying pressure on either side of the single square inch of head and hand that’s coming into view. Being able to _see_ how close she is — that’s making all the difference in the word to Bucky. There is _no_ pain. He’s just going to push her out. Simple as that.

Lincoln replaces the cold rag and then climbs up onto the bed behind Steve, resting his weight on Steve’s extended arm so he can watch Bucky’s face apprehensively. Even with a five-year-old’s elbows in his bicep, Steve doesn’t even blink, and he holds the mirror perfectly steady.

Bucky sees more of Brooklyn’s head with every passing second, and a lot more of her hand, too — her thumb, her fat little wrist. He almost manages to convince himself that this will be the last push, too, and then his body just _quits._

 _There’s_ the pain. It’s almost a relief when it comes back — too surreal without it — _almost._ He screams and sobs, moans, growls, pants hard and fast, shaking like a leaf right down to his bones, until the cycle repeats and it all just _stops._ When he pushes again, he feels stronger than he’s ever been in his _life._

Her head pops free in the first few seconds after he bears down.

Afterward, the pain is so intense for a moment that he blacks out.

He thinks he might be dead.

But Brooklyn drags him right back to reality _real_ fast. She’s not slowing down for anybody, so Bucky can’t either.

Sam’s urging him to take it a little slower. Lincoln’s telling him he can do it. Steve’s not saying anything at all — just watching the mirror, smiling, not allowing himself to blink, as if he can’t afford to miss out on even a fraction of a second. Bucky looks around and listens to all of it, somehow, filtering nothing out, as he bears down in total, unbreathing silence.

He can see Brooklyn just fine in the mirror. Too gorgeous to be real — her hand has shifted down to cup the roundness of her blood-streaked face, and her chin is still pressed tight against him, and either he’s hallucinating or she’s already _moving_ just a little, furrowing her brow, confused...right on the verge of waking up.

At some point, Steve sits up on his elbow and gets his hand behind Bucky’s neck, holding him up, cradling his head as he curls forward, pushing with his whole body until his vision explodes with color and his head is filled with phantom noise.

Everything feels _light._ Like he’s weightless, drifting away into dark water.

There’s an unquantifiable moment of nothingness.

Then pins and needles. Everywhere.

Then indistinguishable sounds, reverberating, droning, meaningless.

Then the bluish light of the lamp and the silhouette of his knee against it.

The sensation of Steve’s hand, still cradling his head in his palm, and another feeling, too — a sharp jolt in the pit of his stomach, like the visceral shock of free-falling, as Brooklyn parts from him in one quick second of rending, incomprehensible burning, followed by the warmth of amniotic fluid spilling out as if a dam has broken inside him.

No more pressure. No more burning. No more pushing.

No deafness or blindness or numbness.

No more reflection either. Steve moves the mirror out of the way so he can get a look at the real thing.

(Utter agony, everywhere, but it’s fine.)

Lincoln’s giggling like he’s in shock. Steve’s caught somewhere between laughing and crying, hysterical either way as he pulls Bucky’s hospital gown up to his collarbone to give their baby a place to rest. Sam just seems _surprised._

And _Brooklyn_ — she’s awake. She pops her eyes open within a couple of seconds and squints at the blurry room around her, until Sam sets her down on Bucky’s belly and towels her off. Bucky laughs aloud.

Heavy as a fucking cinder block. Unbelievable.

He drags her up onto his chest, barely remembering to be gentle with her, because even though she’s a newborn, she’s _so_ _fat_ and indelicate that he’s not too worried about being rough with her. She kicks her feet against his ribs as he pulls her up, fighting the whole way. Steve picked out a good name.

And _then_ she cries. Doesn’t bother with coughing or cooing or whimpering like Lincoln had — just _wails._ Loudest goddamn noise Bucky’s heard in his whole life.

He _loves_ her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to some much needed encouragement from the wonderful tkall, I did something I was super, extremely scared to do. I stuck with Bucky's POV all the way through! I was hell-bent on switching to Steve's perspective again and showing the birth from a place I could personally understand - a supportive spectator.
> 
> Instead, I ended up tackling something I really, truly *cannot* understand fully, and it made me think harder and imagine more vividly than I was comfortable with, and to just...kinda...commit. And you know what? I feel better for having done it. I learned a lot. Thank you so much, tkall - you helped me over a hurdle! <3
> 
> And thank you to absolutely everyone who has read along so far, taken the time to comment, or sent in asks to my Tumblr. Now that the last main character has made her appearance, we can get around to the actual plot! :D


	16. This is the First Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Barnes-Rogers family meets its newest member.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, everyone! Boy have I ever had a crappy day! One big disaster snowball. Now that I'm back home for the night, all I want to do is write angsty fluffy bullshit.
> 
> A little note about this chapter: it wasn't going to exist. I was going to launch straight into the main plot after Brooklyn was born, and worry about writing some little one-shot for the family-feels later. So, I wrote and edited chapter seventeen before having even drafted sixteen. But I decided that since this fic gets a little dark, I wanted to give the happy stuff its due time. I realize this fic is getting kind of long already, and I haven't even gotten into the meat of it yet, but hey, I'm just going to treat it like serial work and let it be as long as it wants to be and not sweat it. Thanks for hanging in there for the long gap between chapters!

The delivery room is filled with noise even before Brooklyn starts to cry. Sam’s elated cheers, Bucky’s agonized, desperate gasps for air, and Lincoln’s shaky, nervous giggles, which had been so unsure a moment ago — now that he sees Brooklyn, now that she’s  _ real, _ he takes hold of Steve’s arm and shakes it ecstatically, laughing like a little maniac. Steve’s never seen him so excited. He doesn’t even bother to tell him to calm down.

Bucky pulls their new little girl up onto his chest, and just a few slow seconds later, Brooklyn finally decides to join the happy chorus and she cries like she’s had practice. She’s pink and flushed in no time at all, kicking and hitting anything that’s within reach, fighting Bucky with everything she’s got as he towels her off with trembling hands.

And Bucky cries when she cries — not the gentle, happy tears Steve recalls from when Lincoln was born, but sudden, forceful sobs from total exhaustion and shock that rattle deep inside his chest. “Oh—ohh, God. Oh my God,” he chokes out. “Hi, Brooklyn — hi, baby. What the hell, baby, you’re too big...”

“She’s wasn’t too big, you got her out,” Steve replies deliriously, voice faint and weak with euphoria. He reaches down to lay a comforting hand on the inside of Bucky’s thigh, not caring that it’s sticky with blood.

“Dad, she’s got blood on her still!” Lincoln shouts in alarm. “And white stuff.”

“I think that’s called vernix,” Steve answers absently, still enraptured by his daughter.

Sam adds a more succinct explanation. “Baby cheese.”

“Did I have that?”

“Oh yeah,” Steve nods. “You were real slippery.”

“Steve, she’s so big. Look at how fucking  _ fat _ she is, she’s so fat,” Bucky laughs, finally getting his breath back after the spell of sobbing. “I can’t fuckin’ believe this.”

“You’re allowed to say that word right now, Papa, it’s okay.”

“Yes, yes,  _ yes,” _ Sam chants, clapping as Brooklyn continues to cry, clearing her airways and learning to breathe on her own. “Delivered a baby  _ by myself.  _  Check me out, Dr. Lehman, you stupid old man, told me I’d never be anything but med tech... _ ” _

“Lincoln,” Bucky slurs, too high on endorphins to censor his state of complete awe and wonder. “Did you see your baby sister? Baby, look, it’s Brooklyn.”

“Yeah, Papa! She looks like a turkey before it gets cooked!”

Bucky nods dazedly in agreement. “Yeah, she kind of does, huh? Sam, weigh her! Sam, we’ve gotta weigh her.”

Sam is changing out the pads on the bed as quickly as he can, shoving clean ones under Bucky to catch the heavy flow of amniotic fluid and blood. He pauses and glances up at Bucky with disbelief in his eyes. “You held her for, like, two minutes, man. We couldn’t get you to let Slim go. You don’t want to snuggle for a minute while I—?”

“I really wanna know. Look at her. I gotta know how much she weighs.”

Sam relents easily, tired laughter bursting out as Bucky pleads with him. “Okay, let’s do this. Lincoln, what’s your guess?”

“Um, twenty pounds. Because that’s what the turkey weighed at Christmas. Or, Dad, was it eighteen? Um, either eighteen or twenty pounds.”

“Steve?”

“Ten pounds...eight ounces? Nn, nine—ten ounces.”

“Cap, dude, hit or stay?”

“Stay. Ten pounds, ten ounces.”

“Bucky Barnes, you  _ better _ know this.”

“Oh, God. She’s got to be over eleven. Eleven-two.”

“I’m going eleven even,” Sam announces, carrying over a sling and spreading it out on the bed. He and Bucky transfer Brooklyn into it together.

“Can I bet?” asks Friday. “No, wait, I’d better not ruin this.”

Sam lifts up the sling, taking care to keep it close to Bucky’s legs so that he doesn’t tug on the cord still connecting the two of them. He watches the digital scale intently as it settles on a reading. His jaw drops, and then he grins with surprise. “Good God, girl. Good  _ God! _ You’re going to break this little scale.”

Bucky can’t seem to contain himself through any more teasing and suspense. “Sam,  _ what?” _

“You won, Barnes.”

_ “Eleven-two?”  _ Steve shouts.

“Nope, but he was the closest. Eleven pounds,  _ four ounces. _ I repeat: that is eleven pounds and  _ four _ ounces. Just over _ five kilograms,”  _ he adds, as if metric will  _ really _ drive the news home. 

Steve can’t shut his mouth. It takes Bucky clutching at the sleeve of his shirt to finally wrest his eyes away from sling and his daughter. He helps Bucky right himself in the bed and shift back to rest against the headboard, where he can sit up a little. He groans as he repositions his legs for the first time in nearly twenty minutes, and a moment later, Bucky’s head has fallen back against the mattress. His breathing is quick and shallow again. Steve stands up so he can move the sanitary pads back underneath him. “Contractions still going?”

“Yeah — real bad.”

“Papa, are you gonna have  _ another _ baby?” Lincoln demands flatly, voice rife with fear and anticipation.

“No,” Steve chuckles. “He’s just got to get the placenta out.”

“That’s where baby mammals get food before they're born!” Lincoln realizes, and pats Bucky’s leg. “Papa, remember? You told me about that. It’s their luggage.”

“Yeah, we did talk about those,” he mumbles.

“Steve—” Sam whispers, just loudly enough to get his attention. He’s got Brooklyn wrapped loosely in a towel — not swaddled just yet. Probably waiting until after her cord is cut. He lifts her up off the bed, and Steve sits down close against Bucky’s side, where Bucky will still be able to see his little girl. He extends two open, waiting hands toward Sam, who’s beaming like sunshine, and then Sam is free to return his full attention to Bucky.

Steve...well, Steve’s attention is elsewhere.

Brooklyn is strikingly heavy and solid in his hands, and when he cradles her against his chest, he can feel the impressive strength behind each of her clumsy movements.

Her hair looks much darker than Lincoln’s had — probably won’t end up dirty blond, like his. When hers dries and fades, Steve guesses it’ll be dark brown. Same color as her eyes, which are just beginning to open up and take him in. All her colors are like wood and earth, and she’s strong and gorgeous, with full cheeks and long eyelashes.

Lincoln had been born with sweet little lips — a long, thin, delicate line that had looked like the finest brushstroke of coral watercolor, the same shape as Bucky’s. Brooklyn’s mouth is narrower — or perhaps it  _ looks  _ narrow because it’s set between the roundness her cheeks, and her lips are full and pouting. Steve recognizes those lips from the single baby picture he has of himself.

The rest of her, though...she’s  _ all _ Barnes and Cadigan — Winifred’s side of the family — where Lincoln had been all Rogers and Tulley (Lincoln had, in fact, grown into the spitting image of the Tulley side, and Steve always finds himself wishing he had a picture of Lincoln’s Grandma Sarah to show him). Brooklyn has Bucky’s wide-set, always skeptical eyes, broad face and dimpled chin, and Winifred’s ruddy, dimpled cheeks and dark, wild curls.

She looks  _ tough.  _ Durable. She’s  _ certainly _ well-padded. Steve doesn’t mean to giggle at her — she’s really,  _ truly _ beautiful, and he’s already sincerely, madly in love with her, but the rest of the family hadn’t exaggerated. She is  _ so _ fat.

He can hardly comprehend how lucky he is: he’s got a gorgeous newborn baby girl,  _ and she’s fat. _ Steve is so happy that he can’t recall having ever been sad in his life.

“Hello there,” he laughs. “Hi, Brooklyn. Look at you. Just  _ look _ at you,” and his voice breaks in the middle of the word. He’d been too amazed to cry a moment ago, but now he can’t help himself. And although Bucky has recovered from his own fit of weeping and gone back to pushing, Steve finds that he’s still not the only one crying.

“Dad, is she screaming ‘cause she’s not happy?” Lincoln asks. Steve figures his son’s tears are reflexive — he’s never seen both of his parents cry like this.

“No, sweetheart, babies have to scream when they’re born. It’s how they learn to breathe. She’s happy, I promise.”

But this is more than a sympathy cry — when he hears that Brooklyn is  _ happy _ , poor Lincoln really cuts loose and bawls, clinging tightly to Steve’s arm and staring down at his little sister. “She’s really cute, Dad. Papa, she’s really, really cute!” He reaches out and pats Bucky’s arm. “You did...a good job,” he sobs, barely forming the words.

“Baby,” Bucky groans, trying to keep his breaths even, and rubs Lincoln’s back soothingly. “What got into you? You alright?”

“Yeah, I’m okay, she’s just...very perfect, and I love her a lot.”

Steve puts his arm around his boy, letting Brooklyn rest in the cradle of his lap. However big she is for a newborn, she’s still small enough that his hand covers her chest, belly, and shoulders when he lays it over her. The warm weight of his palm calms her down in just a few minutes. She might weigh more than he had, but the same little tricks work on her that had always worked on Lincoln. Steve had loved discovering all of these little tricks for the first time, but  _ knowing _ them now, having the experience of five years of fatherhood behind him — that’s a kind of joy all its own.

Lincoln lays himself down in the crook of Bucky’s arm, curled tiredly against him, and reaches for Bucky’s hand to hold, because his papa’s still in pain. Bucky grips Lincoln’s in return, because Lincoln is still overwhelmed with happy tears and the flood of emotions he’s never felt before. Steve looks on, feeling the rise and fall of Brooklyn’s chest and belly beneath his hand. He doesn’t remember exactly when he’d severed his last remaining ties to Catholicism (his mother would be devastated) — might have been when he’d woken up, surrounded by a future that seemed better off with a little less blind faith and a lot more ethical restraint on science, or when he had seen war,  _ real _ war, or when that war had taken Bucky into its jaws and spat him back out changed and incomplete, or maybe it had been when his mother had passed, or the confession when he’d told the priest about the sweet guy he loved, when he’d been told to repent and, more importantly,  _ stop,  _ when he decided he could talk to God himself, without some know-nothing priest to tell him what was right and wrong _. _ He hasn’t talked to God in a long time, but right now, he feels like His ear is pressed close, like He’s leaning down, watching.  _ Thank You _ , he prays silently.  _ Thank You for this. You had a plan, even when I didn’t trust You. You took care of us. _

Sam keeps his voice low and gentle as he coaxes Bucky through the last powerful contractions, but when he turns to Steve, there’s an urgent edge to his whisper. “See if she’ll nurse. Helps the blood clot.”

Steve knows that means that the bleeding still hasn’t slowed down. The screen behind him isn’t displaying Brooklyn’s name and time of birth yet, like it had for Lincoln. The top of the readout, above the CTG graph, shows red letters:

_ HYPOVOLEMIC SHOCK — STAGE 2 — App. 890 ml loss of Total Blood Volume _

_ HR: 102 BPM — Slight Tachycardia _

_ TEMP: 98.9 — Below 99.8 Avg. _

Steve has to force himself to stay calm. Both of them have been  _ miles _ beyond 890 ml of blood loss before. For some reason, it never scares Steve too badly when they’re out in the field. On a mission, Bucky could take a bullet in the shoulder and pour blood for a few hours, and still keep up a conversation. Here, there’s not the distraction of a fight, and Steve is scared. But now isn’t the time for questions. He can wait for an explanation. Right now, all he has to do is respond, and follow Sam’s instructions.

“Buck, you think you can nurse?”

“Yeah, feels...think I’d lose my mind if I didn’t,” he pants.

Steve brings Brooklyn around to the other side of the bed, so he can help Bucky support her while she latches and avoid displacing Lincoln. Steve tucks himself against Bucky’s side and lays her down his chest, where Bucky can cradle her with his right hand. At first, she’s too tired to care about the opportunity for a meal, and her head rests heavily against the swell of a breast with her eyelids squeezed shut and her breaths slow and sleepy. Fortunately, Bucky’s physiological reaction is instantaneous, and milk beads up in ready supply.

“Bet I can wake her up,” Steve smiles, and gathers a few droplets of it on the tip of his own finger. He dabs it against Brooklyn’s lips, making sure there’s enough there for her to taste.

Bucky laughs. “Lincoln — watch her face. This is how I used to wake you up when it was time to feed you.”

“It was time to  _ eat  _ and I didn’t want to wake up?” Lincoln mumbles, frowning skeptically.

“Oh, you got over it.”

“Is milk the only food she can eat? Like, no bacon or hotdogs or…, like, no French toast?”

“Yeah,” Steve answers. “It’s all she needs right now.”

“But now I’m going to feel bad if I eat in front of her, ‘cause she can’t have any of it. I would die without hot dogs, I think.”

“You don’t have to feel bad about that, Lincoln,” Steve explains teasingly. “She wouldn’t even like hot dogs yet. Just watch, she’s about to realize that eating’s way more fun than sleeping.”

“Lincoln, you could have told her that,” Bucky interjects, managing, even through an intense moment of pain, to throw his son a glance that feels like a formal goddamn reprimand.

Meanwhile, Brooklyn snuffles a few times, suddenly aware of the new smell. Her eyes open, narrowed against the intrusive lights, and then her tongue begins to dart out questioningly. When she pulls it back into her mouth and  _ tastes _ for the first time in her life, her eyes go wide with delighted surprise. She becomes hilariously single-minded, opening and closing her mouth, looking for more whatever she’d tasted, twisting and wriggling until she finds what she’s looking for. Steve barely has to support her head. She latches  _ aggressively. _ Bucky actually startles, and looks up at Steve with laughter and indignation written all over his face. She’s  _ rough.  _ They can all see how furiously her mouth and throat are working, and her eyes are wide-awake and intent. None of them know why it’s so funny, but all of them agree that it is.

“She loves food!” Lincoln announces happily. “She’s just like us, you guys. When she’s as old as me, maybe we can get into contests to see how much we can eat or something.”

“She’s definitely your little sister,” Steve agrees with a nod.

“Yeah, because she’s a garbage disposal, which is — um, that’s what Papa used to call me.”

“I still call you that.”

“Um, so does she just not have a penis at all, I guess?”

Steve throws his son a pleading glance, begging him not to ask such stupid, embarrassing questions all the time. He knows it’s futile, but a man can wish. “No, Lincoln, you  _ know _ girls don’t have penises. You—you know that.”

“But she’s not going to get one ever? Not even later?”

“Nope. Not without a really expensive surgery.”

“Okay.”

A few minutes later, the afterbirth is delivered and Bucky finally gets some relief from the intense, lingering contractions. Steve holds her so that she can keep nursing — God knows, there’s no chance of her letting go before she’s done — and Bucky smiles and proclaims that it’s his turn, because Steve got to do the last one, and cuts her cord. She doesn’t seem to notice.

“Steve, check your phone,” Sam says suddenly, only a few seconds after their brief celebration has ended.

Steve had left it over on the counter, forgotten once Sam arrived. He has four missed calls from Banner, and sixteen text messages.

**I don’t think this is passed on through contact**

**I KNOW this not passed via person to person contact**

**Steve this is DEFINITELY environmental**

**I’ve had Tony isolated and under observation since he got back**

**His brain scan is almost NORMAL**

**Steve answer your phone I know you’re busy but I need you to make a call for the team**

**I think we should have them evac Jericho and pull out**

**Okay I’m just going to pass info on to Nat and let her make the call**

**Evac is underway, Nat has it under control**

**National Guard stepping in for evac, Nat, Parker, and Lang headed back**

**Parker has head injury, no one is showing symptoms, can I call off quarantine and let them in?**

**Nat is signing off on ending quarantine no worries**

**I’m free, you guys need help? Bucky ok?**

**Friday gave me his readouts, does he need stitches? I’m almost totally certain this can’t pass from person to person and I feel normal and my brain scan looks good**

**Gotta be your call whether or not to let me around Barnes and kids though**

**I can be up there in a few minutes if you guys need me**

Goddamnit, this is  _ exactly _ why he doesn’t try to take time off. No matter how  _ right _ it is to take the time, no matter how much the others encourage it, no matter how much he knows he shouldn’t feel guilty for ignoring his phone while his daughter was being born, he  _ always _ regrets not being there for his team. Every single time.

And now that he’s finally getting back with Bruce, it’s to  _ ask _ for help, rather than offer it.

_ Sorry,  _ he replies.  _ Tough delivery. 11lbs 4oz _

Bruce responds immediately.  **Holy Crap! Congratulations!!! I’m out of the lab, how is Bucky?**

_ Needs stitches, lost a lot of blood _

**On my way**

“Is he coming?” Sam asks expectantly.

“Yeah, he’ll be right up.”

Sam nods, then bows his head, like he’d lay down on his own shoulder and fall asleep, if he could. He looks like he passed beyond exhaustion a long time ago, and he’s running on nothing but fumes now. Steve tries to remember the last time he saw Sam get more than a few minutes of rest.

“Okay, well, I’m gonna stay up here to brief him on everything, and then I can take Lincoln back up to—”

“Sam.”

Sam looks up, suddenly conscious. God, he’d been offering help in his  _ sleep. _ “Yeah.”

“Friday can brief him. Go lie down.”

“I’m alright, man, I can—”

“Oh, God, Sam,” Steve laughs. Either Bucky’s flood of hormones are contagious, or the last month has just caught up to Steve all at once. Whatever the reason, his eyes are — yet again — full of tears. Heedless of their sweat-drenched shirts and Sam’s bloody exam gloves, he grabs his friend by the arm and yanks him into a tight hug. “You just delivered my daughter. You were amazing. Don’t — don’t shake your damn head, Sam. I couldn’t have done this alone. I owe you.”

Sam snorts. “Yeah, well, add this to the list.”

“Oh, I’m supposed to be keeping a list?”

“Yeah, you and Romanov still owe me for room and board from back in, like, 2014, or something. No such thing as a free meal, Cap,” he grins, patting Steve’s back hard, probably staining his shirt on purpose.

“Thank you. One of these days, I’ll figure out how to pay you back.”

“Man, you made me an Avenger.”

“That’s not payback,” Steve laughs. “That’s more trouble.”

“I don’t know, I saw a coffee mug at the store with my face on it the other day,” he chuckles, and then looks around at the Facility, “and I got free high-speed internet. Not too bad. Barnes!” He turns back toward the bed to pat Bucky’s knee. “Nice job, man. I had a great time staring at your asshole all night.”

“Gee, thanks,” Bucky smiles wryly.

“Sure as hell beats looking at your face.”

Steve watches a moment of hesitation pass between Sam and Bucky, before they seem to come to a consensus, and Sam leans down, hugs him, and kisses the top of his head noisily. And while he’s down there, he picks up one of Brooklyn’s feet and presses a few big kisses to the bottom of it, too. “I’ll see you in the morning, big girl. Don’t you eat too much. Uncle Sam’s not gonna be able to pick you up.” When Sam stands up again, he has no choice but to bring Lincoln with him — he’s wrapped his arms around Sam’s neck and, half dozing, clung to him all the way up, where he can lay his head on Sam’s shoulder. “Oh, Slim, you were so awesome. You practically delivered that baby all by yourself, you know that?”

“I tried to help, but you had to do most of it, and my tooth doesn’t even hurt anymore,” he mumbles insensibly, mouth pressed into Sam’s shirt.

“Steve, you want me to take him back upstairs with me? We can get some sleep in my quarters.”

“Dinosaur movie again.”

“And we can watch Jurassic Park and eat all my Eggos in bed.”

Steve laughs. “Sure.”

“Yeah!” Lincoln sighs. For once, he sounds like he might not stay awake long enough to eat — not even a waffle.

“Friday, show me what I want to see, before I pass out, girl,” Sam demands loudly.

“You mean this?” the AI giggles, and replaces the CTG with her customary announcement.

_ Brooklyn Barnes-Rogers _

_ Born January 31, 2023 at 1:10AM _

_ 11 pounds 4 ounces, 22.5 inches _

“Oh, wait!” she cries urgently, and then adds to the bottom:

_ Delivered by Sam (“The Godfather”) Wilson, assisted by Lincoln “Slim” Barnes-Rogers. _

“There. Now I’m done,” she announces.

“She knows my name, Steve, you see that?” Sam says seriously. “I see something missing, though — Barnes, give that baby a middle name.”

Bucky looks up groggily — he’d been staring down at Brooklyn, not catching much of the conversation. Steve figures he’ll probably come up with something later.

“Shelby.”

Steve’s breath catches in his throat as he laughs. He’s not serious, is he?

What the  _ hell _ did Bucky just say?  _ Shelby? _ Steve’s not sure he likes it. Where did he even come up with—oh.

“Like Shelbyville,” Bucky clarifies.

Steve nods slowly, trying to show support rather than grim acceptance. “Where you were born.”

“‘Cause you were born in Brooklyn, and I was—”

“No, I—I get it, now, Buck, but don’t you want to sleep on it before you—?”

“Nope,” he smiles resolutely. “Brooklyn Shelby.”

“Cool, I hate it,” Sam comments, then throws Steve a comforting glance. “We’ll come up with a dope nickname for her, Steve, don’t worry.”

“Well...it’s kind of growing on me,” he admits, only a little grudgingly.  _ “Really _ growing on me.”

“Cool, I still hate it.”

Once again, the screen updates:  _ Brooklyn Shelby Barnes-Rogers. _

Sam stares at it for a while, then takes off toward the door, hefting Lincoln up onto his hip. “You and me, Slim. We’re gonna name the next one on our own.”

“Bye, Brooklyn,” Lincoln slurs, nearly asleep. “I love you a lot.”

And the room is quiet.

Steve and Bucky are left alone with their daughter, now — and one another. Bucky catches his eye, and they share something silent, something profound, from across the room. Accomplishment and readiness. Steadfast, well-worn love.

“How you feeling?”

Bucky smirks, his voice a low, raw crackle in his tired throat. “How do I look?” 

“Hope you feel better than  _ that.” _

A moment later, Banner knocks on the door as he cracks it open, poking his head in tentatively. When they look up at him, he hurries into the room, rushing to wash his hands and find gloves. “You guys, I’m so sorry about leaving you hanging — the situation with Tony — and this crap in Jericho, oh my God, it’s been a mess, but I think we’ve — Jesus Christ. Barnes.” He stops suddenly, one glove half on, glasses sliding down his nose. He’s almost scowling with disbelief. He looks to Steve for help, then back to Bucky and Brooklyn as he gestures vaguely toward her. “Is that her?”

Steve smiles, shutting his eyes to hold back a laugh at Bruce’s expense. “That’s her, Bruce.”

“She’s big!” he shouts, grimacing comically. Steve and Bucky meet that statement with unspoken agreement. “That came  _ out _ of you?” He puts on hand on top of his head, holding his elbow up by his face. “Like  _ this?” _

“Yes, she did,” Bucky confirms, patting Brooklyn through the towel and staring frostily down at her.

“Sheesh. Fuck,” Bruce huffs. “Okay. Well...stitches, probably. Probably a lot of stitches. God, that’s — that must have been crazy. Who named her Brooklyn? Steve, was that you?”

“Yeah,” he answers proudly.

“Oh, haha, wow.” Bruce’s laugh is stiff and perfunctory, and trails off into a mumbled, “I don’t know what I expected.”

Bucky throws Steve a little glance that says  _ I told you so.  _ Luckily, with his son’s watchful eyes out of the room and Banner’s back turned, Steve is free to quietly show Bucky his middle finger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I appreciate you guys immensely.


	17. Blood and Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brooklyn gets a bath. Steve and Bucky get help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry to delay your angst for yet another chapter. I wasn't going to include the entirety of the bath scene, and then I did. So I split the 10k word chapter up.
> 
> WARNING: BLOOD / POST PARTUM BLEEDING

At seven o'clock in the morning, in the silence and stillness behind the closed elevator doors, Steve takes his first full breath since December 27th. His eyes fall shut, his shoulders drop, and his jaw unclenches.

They did it. Again. Bucky's alright. Brooklyn's more than alright — she's perfect. And they're bringing her home together.

However long he lives, he'll never forget the first night of Brooklyn's life. Every single moment throughout the night had been an uphill battle, full of pain and anxiety and fear, dripping IVs and hissing oxygen and stinging needles, but they had pressed on together, minute by minute as the night had become predawn and the sun had risen over the Facility's snow-covered grounds, casting white daylight into the delivery room.

If it had been an uphill battle, then he and Bruce and Bucky had pulled each other up that hill, step by step and hand over hand. When Bruce was anxious, Bucky had reassured him. When Steve had paced and fretted, Bruce had talked him through it. When Bucky's eyes had looked a little too distant, when his hands shook and his fingers clutched mercilessly at the remaining metal bed rail, Steve was there, kissing his forehead, gripping his hand, supporting Brooklyn’s weight against him so she could nurse. And when his rigid muscles would make his legs strain fearfully against the stirrups, Bruce had always noticed without fail. Each time, he had been more careful, he had done everything in his power to wrench gentleness out of each ungentle surgical instrument. He'd smiled and told him what he was doing and explained why it was going to hurt and how it would help, and told him how much closer they were to finished, or jokingly admonished Brooklyn for the mess of tears she’d made on her way out into the world. Shifting the blame onto Brooklyn seemed to help, because none of them could be too upset with her — she looked unshakably pleased with herself in her intermittent periods of wakefulness, when she was alert and active and relentlessly curious and noisy. They all know that she’s worth every bit of the trouble she’d caused, a hundred thousand times over.

Finally, Bruce had finished the long, arduous task of stitching Bucky back together, and Bucky had recovered from the hours of pain and shaken off the weight of the light anesthesia. Brooklyn had been fed more than she'd needed throughout the night, since Bruce had insisted that nursing would help the blood clot faster, so she had been sleeping too deeply to care when Steve had swaddled her in a warm, impossibly soft blanket, and said, “Let’s get you home, baby girl.”

Together, he and Bruce had been there to help Bucky with all the unglamorous details of making it back to his own bed — wiping the blood off his thighs and belly, throwing out the socks he’d bled on, bagging up his stained clothes, and struggling ungracefully out of the delivery bed and into a very loose pair of underwear. Bruce had been kind enough to soak a few maternity pads with aloe and Witch Hazel and store them out in the lab’s freezer. Bucky had packed a plain black sports bra — the same one that Cho had given him when he was pregnant with Lincoln. He’ll never love wearing it, but it’s comfortable, and he needs it. Steve had placed a pair of nursing pads in it. Bruce had steadied the wheelchair, and Steve had helped Bucky into it, and then, with a sense of reverence and bone-deep pride, he’d placed Brooklyn in Bucky’s waiting arms. With no less love or reverence, he’d knelt down to slide a pair of sandals onto Bucky’s feet.

“Well done, everybody,” Friday had remarked softly over the intercom. “See you next time.”

Steve had laughed at that. Bucky had, too, but his laughter had been more of an exhausted exhale, although it was accompanied by a broad, contented smile. “Give me a few months, and we’ll see,” he had grinned, catching Steve’s eye.

They had shared a round of tired hugs and handshakes with Bruce, and started the slow, happy journey back to the sixth floor.

Now, Steve stands in the elevator, resting his hands on the back of the wheelchair, eyes shut, shoulders and jaw relaxed, and takes a deep breath. They _did_ it.

He’s not sure how long he stands there before Bucky speaks up. “Steve, either press the six-button or roll me forward so I can do it.”

“Sorry,” Steve says, clearing his throat as he startles back to life, and pushes it.

A few seconds later, Bucky laughs. He tips his head back to stare up at Steve with a pretty cheeky smirk on his face for somebody who looks half-dead. Steve knows he’s still in a lot of pain, too — he can hear it in the rhythm of his breath. He gives Brooklyn a gentle little bounce. “Steve.”

“Yeah.”

“Look what I fuckin’ did.”

Steve snorts. “Oh, so you’re taking all the credit for this one?”

“Did you push her out?”

“Yeah, nine months ago.”

“Steve, ugh.”

“Well, I did.”

“Goddamnit, you’re disgusting.”

“I’m disgusting? I’m the only one on this elevator not wearing a diaper.”

“Okay. Fair point.”

“You hungry?”

“Steve, if I were any hungrier, I’d eat this baby.”

“Don’t be mean, Buck. She’s big enough to share.”

The elevator opens on the sixth floor and the common area just as their laughter is fading. Three heads turn simultaneously toward them as they step out. Thor rises respectfully and Nat and Clint straighten up in their seats, tired, expectant eyes taking stock of Bucky and Steve and the round, blanketed shape on Bucky’s shoulder.

“We will _not_ bother you guys if you want to get some rest,” Natasha promises immediately, throwing a stern glance in Thor’s direction. “But if you wanted to show her off, her groupies have been waiting.”

Steve looks down at Bucky, ready to tell them all no if Bucky seems unwilling, but he finds a stupidly smug expression on his face, chasing away the exhaustion. _“If_ I wanna show her off,” he repeats mockingly. “I wanna put her on national news.”

“Thor,” Steve smiles, clasping his friend's hand in greeting as he brings Bucky’s wheelchair into the common room. Thor quickly turns it into a bolstering, frighteningly powerful hug. “Didn’t know you were on Earth. You never call.”

“I’ve been here seven days now. Someone stole a few things from a treasury and I think they may be trying to sell them on Earth — Laevateinn and Odrorir? Heard anything about those?”

“Can’t say I have.”

“I was hoping the Avengers or Dr. Selvig might help me, but when I arrived all the doors were locked for some reason, so I had to sleep outside. Which is fine, of course. Laevateinn is just something of Loki’s, I won’t be too disappointed if I don’t find it, but Odrorir, that’s more concerning — we need that for mead and poetry and a number of other — well, it doesn’t matter,” he concludes with some frustration, then looks down at Bucky like he’s noticing him for the first time. “Barnes. Barton and Romanoff tell me you’ve had another one.”

“Thor, if you gotta cut, don’t hold up the fucking line, man,” Clint bitches, waiting impatiently just behind him.

Bucky passes Brooklyn eagerly into Thor’s open hands, and Steve doesn’t miss the expectant way his narrowed, calculating eyes watch for a reaction. He’s never seen Bucky be so unabashedly proud of something in his whole life. Bucky should have passed out by now. He should be _unconscious,_ but that conceited bastard’s too busy parading his baby girl around the Facility and crowing over her weight to anybody who’ll listen. It’s _hilarious,_ and so, so incredibly, indescribably sublime.

Thor, without ever asking or hesitating, extricates Brooklyn from the neat job Steve had done of swaddling her and then passes the blanket unscrupulously to Clint. Steve almost says something — Thor may be some kind of fertility god, but that is _his_ daughter — but Bucky touches his arm lightly. He wants to see how this plays out.

Thor weighs her carefully in his hands as she wakes up and takes in the sight of him. She doesn’t cry, despite losing her blanket. In fact, if her struggle to pry her eyes open a little wider is any indication, she’s _very_ interested in him.

“Strong,” Thor muses. Steve can’t help but notice that he doesn’t just sound complimentary — he sounds genuinely awestruck. “Stronger than any mortal child I’ve encountered, I think.”

Bucky, as expected, beams like a spotlight.

“Quite fat, too — Barnes, you must have eaten well.”

“Did my best,” Bucky admits. “Hamburgers, oatmeal, and ice cream. Couldn’t keep anything else down.”

After a little pestering, Thor finally passes her to Clint. Clint looks like he’s hellbent on staring passive aggressively at Thor while he wraps her back up, but he abandons that task as soon as he’s got a hold of her. He lays her on his shoulder, bouncing her experimentally, probably comparing her to the other four children he’s bounced there, night after night. “What is she, about...eleven?” he guesses, cocking an eyebrow.

“Eleven pounds, four ounces,” Bucky declares with a self-congratulatory smirk, straightening up his back as if to imply he hadn’t even broken a sweat delivering her.

“Ah — Laura’s still got you beat,” Clint chuckles. “Nathaniel was eleven-five. Ten days overdue.”

Natasha pulls a face. “Clint, it’s not a contest.”

Clint, Steve, and Bucky all turn toward her, as if they’re all just a little surprised to hear that. Bucky is the one who finally states the obvious: “Yes, it is.”

“Natasha, here you go, you love holding babies,” Clint grins, leaning toward her as he transfers Brooklyn down to a cradle-hold.

“No — no, Clint, uh-uh, I don’t do newborns.”

“Come on, Nat!”

“Nope, stop it, she’s too fresh.”

“She’s a tank, Romanoff, you couldn’t put a dent in her if you tried,” Bucky assures her.

Nat gives in with a grimace. She sits back down on the couch, shakes her hands out like she’s getting ready to touch something terrifying, and then extends them hesitantly toward Clint. He lays Brooklyn on top of her legs lengthwise, so that they can get a good look at each other. Natasha makes a nervous, whining sound the entire time, until Clint steps away and she’s left facing down a six-hour-old infant alone and unaided. She still looks panicked, but she no longer looks speechlessly horrified. “Oh my God. Ah. I don’t hold them this young. I always wait a month so their heads aren’t so soft. I’m going to drop her. Clint — Bucky, Steve, take her back.”

“You’re doing fine,” Clint assures her. “I’m pissed you got over it for theirs and not one of mine, but whatever.”

Natasha, very gingerly, frees Brooklyn’s arms from the now loosely wrapped blanket, and takes her hands. Steve approaches slowly and sits down next to her, just to give her some added security. He’s never been so entertained in his life.

“You’ve got this, Nat,” he chuckles, patting her back.

“Ah! Oh, Jesus, Steve don’t touch me right now. I’m concentrating.”

“You’re doing fine, Nat, you’re not going to hurt her.”

“I don’t think I have a motherly bone in my body. I can only do Fun Drunk Aunt. This is too small. Oh Jesus Christ, look at her _rolls,”_ she giggles, brushing her thumbs over little folds of fat in Brooklyn’s armpits. “Did you guys stick with the president names? Is she Taft?”

Bucky snorts. “Brooklyn Shelby.”

Clint — that stupid asshole — throws his head back and laughs. Nat turns and stares at Steve, mouth hanging open, seeming unsure of whether or not she ought to laugh, too, like she’s hoping that _maybe_ Steve will cut her some slack and tell her it was just Bucky’s idea of a joke. “Steve, is he...are you guys serious?”

Steve nods, letting a little hurt show in his grin and hoping they all feel guilty.

“You named your baby _Brooklyn?”_ She repeats the name in a mocking, deep-voiced Brooklyn accent. Steve’s suspicious that it’s supposed to be an impression of _him._ “Oh my God, Steve, did Bucky have to talk you out of making her middle name _Bridge?_ Brooklyn Bridget? Brooklyn Dodgers? You’re ridiculous. Like, it’s a cute name, but coming from Steve ‘I’m a Brooklyn Bitch’ Rogers — Steve, it’s overkill.”

“Shelby’s cool,” Clint interjects. “You guys just like the name, or what?”

“Shelbyville, Indiana,” Bucky sighs. “That’s where I was born.” Steve can’t tell whether he’s regretting the choice or not — he was pretty out of it when he settled on _Shelby._

“They named her after their birthplaces,” Thor states unsurely. “I don’t see why that’s...is that funny on Earth?”

Behind them, the elevator chimes again, and Natasha passes Brooklyn hurriedly back to Steve, like she doesn’t want whoever’s about to walk in to see her holding an infant. She must think it would damage her reputation. Steve takes his daughter back and cranes his neck to look out into the foyer.

Bruce makes his way around the corner and stops. He seems nervous. “Can — Steve, Bucky, you mind if Tony comes to visit for a second? We’re discharging him, and he’s been cleared by every disease pathologist we’ve—”

“Banner!” Thor shouts, and doesn’t let him say any more. He strides forward and, as usual, hugs poor Bruce with such ferocity that Steve worries about the doctor’s vertebrae.

It gives Steve a moment to pass Brooklyn back to Bucky. Bucky inclines his head toward the elevator and throws him a subtle, encouraging wink as Steve hands her off — he must know how worried Steve has been. He gives Bucky a brief, grateful nod, then jogs over to the entryway.

He finds Tony there, practically glued to the wall beside the closing elevator doors, as if he’s afraid to step too far into the room without everyone’s permission. Steve nearly flinches when he sees him — Tony doesn’t look well.

He’s paler than when Steve last saw him just a few days ago. Dressed down in soft clothes, hair’s a mess, his beard hasn’t been trimmed. His eyes look red and raw. His back is bent. Tired. And this was enough of an improvement for Bruce to release him.

It makes Steve recall just how bad it was in North Korea. And maybe it’s selfish and callous of him, but it’s _harder_ when it’s Tony. When it’s someone he’s used to seeing with a smile on his face, however impudent or condescending that smile might be.

Tony glances up at him for a moment, then looks back at the wall where he’s leaning, cringing with shame and embarrassment. Steve reaches out and touches his arm. “Tony—”

“I’m okay — I just. Fuck. Wish that hadn’t happened — when it did. Team needed me, people needed the team — you had a baby on the way. Goddamnit,” he mumbles, words spilling out unchecked and raw. “When it rains,” he adds bitterly.

“Tony, it wasn’t your fault. It happens.”

“Hard not to...well, you know. Feel like a burden.”

“I was feeling the same way,” Steve admits. “Dropped everything to come home. Job wasn’t finished. I know, Tony.”

Finally, Tony shows the suggestion of a smile. It’s not much, but it’s an attempt. “Well. Team did alright without us. Everybody’s coming home safe.”

“Yeah, they did,” Steve sighs. “I guess we raised ‘em right.”

“Yeah.” Tony steps forward. His expression is unsure, hesitant, but Steve puts out an inviting arm, and Tony gravitates almost automatically into the friendly, familiar embrace. Steve gives him a few indelicate, bracing slaps on the back, knowing that being treated like something breakable is probably the last thing Tony wants right now. It seems to give him the energy to return the hug with a little more force.

“Heard I missed something big.”

“Oh my God,” Steve gushes. “You have no idea. Come on, come hold her. We just got back from medical.”

“I probably shouldn’t—”

“Tony, it’s not communicable. Not like that, anyway. Let’s trust Bruce on this. Do you _want_ to meet her? We can wait if you’re not up to it.”

And Tony tries to say no, but he gives up, lets out the breath that would have carried his argument, and bows his head, laughing. “Yeah. If you and Barnes are comfortable with it. _Only_ if you’re both alright with it. God, I wish I hadn’t missed it,” he adds as the smile falls suddenly from his face.

“Tony, it’s okay. Come on.” And with a little help from Bruce, Steve walks him into the common room, coaxing him along with a steady hand on his shoulder. He sits down on the ottoman in front of Bucky, watching Bucky’s face for any sign of discomfort or fear even as he eyes the bundle resting on his chest with eager curiosity. Bucky only gives him a broad, welcoming grin.

“Barnes — nice to see somebody who looks worse than I do.”

“That’s funny, I was thinking the same thing.”

Tony takes a deep breath and slaps his hands against his thighs, as if the impact might clear his head. “Okay, let’s get a look at her. Did she turn out cute or does she look more like Steve?”

Bucky, to Tony’s apparent shock, doesn’t just show him Brooklyn’s face — he passes her right over. Steve would never say so in front of Tony, but there’s a voice in his head — an overprotective, paranoid voice that trusts no one’s expertise or opinion but his own — that tells him Brooklyn shouldn’t be around him. Not when he’s been affected by this _thing_ they’re still dealing with. He ignores it. He trusts Bruce’s findings, and he trusts Bucky’s instincts.

Steve supports Bucky’s back through the painstakingly difficult motion of sitting up. Tony freezes momentarily as he bends forward to lay her in his lap.  “Oh,” he laughs softly. “Oh, wow. Look at that.” He picks her up, supporting her head with the kind of delicate care Steve usually only sees him use on fragile circuitry, and cradles her in both hands. Steve can tell she’s getting sleepy again, and probably hungry, too. She’s working her jaw in between yawns, looking heart-wrenchingly sweet. Putting on a hell of a show for Tony.

“Good morning, Brooklyn,” Tony greets her quietly, then catches Steve’s eye. “Dr. Banner spoiled the big name reveal. I’ll be making fun of it the moment I make a full recovery. You get a pass for now.” And he turns back to the sleepy infant stretching and squirming in his arms. “Listen. Your dads have been real sticks-in-the-mud about letting me spoil your brother. But guess what? Parents get lazy. Crazy, rich uncles have a special way of wearing down their good intentions until they just say, _fuck it, let him slip her some cash. Let him buy her that car._ Don’t you worry, baby. I can do a lot better than just paying for your papa’s blood transfusions, _”_ he chuckles to himself, looking up at Bucky to share the joke.

Bucky nods in agreement. “God, I needed _three_. Glad I work somewhere that makes me store it up for emergencies.”

Tony raises his eyebrows as he turns back to Brooklyn. “Yeah, you hear that? You caused an emergency. You’re about the biggest thing to come out of an asshole since I had my appendix removed.”

“His appendix came out of his asshole?” Thor asks quietly, politely trying to stifle his obvious amusement.

“I’m — I’m the metaphorical asshole in this joke — you know what? Forget it. Thor. When the hell did you show up? Send a carrier pigeon or something, let me know you’re coming so I can make up the Hide-a-Bed. I gave your room away to Parker.”

“You’ve replaced me with the spider boy?”

“No, no, you’ve just been busy. We all understand. Nine realms, Earth can’t take up all your time, even though it’s where all your friends live, and I offered you free room and board and internet—” Tony stops mid-sentence and looks around the room. “Oh my God. Ha. Look at that.”

“What?” Natasha asks, glancing suspiciously over her shoulder.

Steve smiles. Their stroke of good luck hadn’t escaped him, either. “Old team’s back together again.”

Bruce strolls forward to join the rest of them. “Jesus. What’s it been, now? Ten, eleven years?”

Nat’s face lights up with a playful grin. “God, it _is_ the Avengers. Took me a second. The straight men on this team aren’t aging well.”

“What straight men?” Tony snorts. “What, Thor? Clint? Don’t let Laura fool you, he’s flexible.”

“I wasn’t talking about Clint, I know him better than you do.”

“I’ve been adventurous in the past. Banner? Would you like to come out as straight?”

Banner looks too exhausted to have this conversation, but it seems to be cheering Tony up. “I — gotta be very careful about sex, so, I mean, if they want to listen to soft music and smoke marijuana and go very, very slow, and they’re willing to risk getting killed, that’s generally what I look for in a person.”

“Steve, overshare. We’re all doing it,” Tony demands snappily. Steve’s just glad to hear him sounding like himself again.

“Well, I used to tour with those U.S.O. girls,” he laughs, feeling his face turning red-hot with embarrassment. “Space was tight sometimes, you know, so we shared a dressing room…”

“And?” Natasha presses, eyes wide and hungry for what she must think is going to be a great story.

“And that’s the only time I’ve ever seen a naked woman in real life.”

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

“Nope.”

“God, guys, I missed this stupid shit,” Tony laughs. “We had a good thing going back at the Tower. Just the six of us, killing aliens, gossiping, bonding, kicking the shit out of Barton, trying to kill Thor’s brother...good times.”

“We’re not ignoring you, Barnes,” Clint whispers. “We’re just pretending you’re not here.”

* * *

Clint says he came by to help keep the Facility and the team running while they dealt with the outbreak of crises he’d been hearing about on the news. Steve suspects that Laura had sent him over _specifically_ to help with Brooklyn.

The moment they’ve said their goodbyes, Steve starts to roll Bucky’s wheelchair toward their quarters and finds Clint following casually at his heels.

“You guys eaten?”

“Not for a while.”

“Barnes, you still need a shower?”

“Yes, I do,” Bucky replies forcefully.

“Brooklyn had a bath yet?”

“No, she needs one pretty bad, too. Still got all that vernix in her hair…”

“Where’s that boy of yours?”

“With Sam. They’re getting some sleep.”

“Cool, I’ll do breakfast. You guys get her cleaned up and then I’ll watch her for a while. Steve, help Bucky out with a shower. Food’ll be ready as soon as you guys are done. You got pads in the freezer or do you need some? Laura sent me with, like, ten.”

“I didn’t have time to make any up earlier,” Bucky groans. “Thank her for me.”

“Got puppy pads for the bed, too. You’re gonna bleed like a motherfucker after that one.”

“Got what?”

“Puppy pads. Cheaper than maternity matts, way bigger, exact same thing. You don’t do this shit four times and learn nothing, man.”

Steve turns to him as they reach the door, awestruck and so thankful he could cry. “God, it’s nice to know some other parents.”

* * *

In her short six and a half hours of life outside the womb, Brooklyn has been as calm and sweet as any baby they’ve ever seen. She barely cries. She’s unshakeable. Always content. Smiles every time she’s awake.

Until they get her in the bath.

They’ve set up the little basin of warm water and a pile of towels fresh out of the dryer on the kitchen table. She starts screaming as soon as the wet washcloth touches her face, and Steve can only laugh sympathetically. She’s absolutely _furious_ with them for doing this to her. She quiets down a little as Steve washes her hair — she almost seems to like it. But the moment he rinses the soap off, and there’s water on her again instead of her dad’s warm, gentle hand, she’s positively _hateful._ And then they get her out of the blanket and her diaper, and actually set her in the water. Her reaction is enough to shock _Clint._

“Jesus, God in Heaven,” he shouts over her screams. “Are you dipping her in acid? What’s going on?”

Bucky manages to laugh, but Steve can tell his heart’s breaking for his daughter, however trivial her complaint is. “She just...man, she doesn’t like this one bit,” he sighs. Steve wouldn’t dream of saying so, but he’s never seen Bucky look so rough. He’s definitely reached the upper limits of his endurance, even considering his enhancements. Still, he had wanted to help bathe her, and Steve’s not going to tell him no. “I had a little sister that was the same way. Ma had to pull out the belt before Louise’d get into the tub. God, and Lincoln _loved_ this…”

Brooklyn abandons rage in favor the most pitiful, gut-wrenching cries Steve has ever heard in his life. Her chin trembles uncontrollably with each shivering, unhappy wail and she won’t open her eyes for anything. She stops struggling, gives up on trying to kick all the water out of the basin and goes limp in Bucky’s hands as Steve makes a final, hurried pass over her with the washcloth. He’s starting to wonder if she’ll ever forgive them.

“Steve — wrap her up for me — I gotta get my shirt off, I soaked through these stupid nursing pads—”

“Bet she’ll be happy to hear that.”

“Sorry, Clint,” Bucky calls out, practically tearing his shirt off — or trying. He’s still in the wheelchair. He’s sitting on the hem of it. With Brooklyn in one arm, Steve can’t help him up. Luckily, Clint is there in an instant to take her and dry her off, so that Steve can help Bucky sit up enough to get out of his soaked shirt.

“Oh my God. Steve. Steve—”

“What?” Steve gasps, feeling himself pale. And he’s not the only one. Bucky’s as white as a sheet.

“Help — help me stand up, something just—”

“Do you need to go to the bathroom?”

“I don’t know, I just—”

But as soon as Steve gets him on his feet, the problem is apparent. There seat of the wheelchair has a puddle of blood in it. The back of Bucky’s sweatpants is saturated. Steve can only follow him, protesting, as Bucky snatches one of the towels, clutches it between his legs, and _somehow_ manages to waddle into the kitchen.

“Seriously? Bucky, don’t worry about the carpet — are you hemorrhaging? Should I call Bruce?”

“I — I don’t know, help me with my pants—”

“Okay, just lean on the counter—”

Clint doesn’t look quite as panicked. He’s rocking Brooklyn on his shoulder with one hand and taking out his phone with the other.

“Barton, are you calling Bruce?” Steve snaps, pulling the waistband of Bucky’s pants down to his ankles. There’s enough blood to make _him_ feel light headed. This can’t be right.

“No, man, I’m getting ready to take a picture of this clot.”

Using the kitchen counter for both support and some modicum of privacy, Steve and Bucky manage to get his underwear down to his knees so Steve can get a look at the pad. There _is_ a clot.

“How big is it?” Clint grins.

“Half-dollar, easily,” Steve sighs. God, he thought Bucky was about to bleed out on their kitchen floor. He’d had a _dozen_ that size with Lincoln. Nothing to worry about. Steve supposes they’re all still shaken up from the blood-loss earlier, after Bucky had started to tear.

“Is it kinda snotty-looking?” Clint asks blithely. “Blood and mucous?”

“Yeah,” Bucky confirms shakily.

“Normal lochia. But fuck that half-dollar bullshit. Are you still holding your legs shut? Steve, get out of the way.”

Bucky gives Steve a fearful, bewildered glance, and Steve yields to Barton’s experience and backs up a little as Bucky carefully shifts one foot away from the other. And thank God he listened. The clot that spatters onto the kitchen floor is a only a few centimeters smaller than his _fist_ , and the veritable _cascade_ of blood that pours out after it is enough to drench Bucky’s legs, his pants, and the tile between his feet. Bucky’s face is some kind of hybrid between horror, embarrassment, confusion, and morbid fascination. Steve couldn’t say what his own face is doing. Probably something similar. They both turn to Clint, begging for answers, reassurance, _anything. Help._

But he makes his way around the counter at an infuriatingly leisurely pace, bouncing Brooklyn along with him. He’s _not_ much help. “Haha!” he giggles triumphantly, directing his phone toward the pool of blood on the floor and the clot in the center of the carnage, and then he _actually takes a picture of it_. “Oh, Laura’s gonna love this. Steve, let me send her a picture of you, too. Words literally cannot describe your expression. Go sit on the toilet, Barnes, I’ll bring you Brooklyn and get this mopped up.”

“How did—?” Steve starts, then thinks better of even asking.

Clint answers anyway. “Childbirth. The gift that keeps on giving. You know I’ve had one of those things plop right into my hand while I was wiping Laura’s ass, right?”

Steve’s face crumples. _“Why_ would you—”

“She was breastfeeding! She had her hands full!”

“No, why would you _tell me that?”_ he finishes. “Laura’d kill you, Clint!”

“Two babies ago, yeah,” Clint shrugs “Now? She tells that story at picnics.”

Steve takes Bucky’s still-trembling hands and helps him step out of his ruined sweatpants, fixing him with a wide-eyed, challenging stare. “Bucky, are you _sure_ you want to have more?”

“Why not,” Bucky deadpans. “What have I got to lose?” he rasps, leaning heavily against Steve and taking the first few tiny, cautious steps toward the bathroom. “No goddamn dignity, that’s for sure.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should have chapter 18 ready for you guys tonight!


	18. Home Safe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone is coming home, one way or another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, guys! Sorry this one is later than I promised. I cut out half of it to save for next time and added a scene in that I felt was important. Hope you guys enjoy it!

Steve doesn’t tire easily. He’s gone a week without sleep before and still managed to do his job and save lives. The Ultron debacle had set his personal record at eight days and nine hours. It’s only been three days since he slept. He shouldn’t be this exhausted. And yet, here he is, asleep on his feet, taking a nap against the bathroom door.

He only wakes up when his legs start to give out. Bucky’s doing a little better — he seems to be sleeping, too, but he’s still managing to hold Brooklyn to his chest and pat her bottom while she nurses. Her eyes are the only ones that are wide-open and alert. She looks wary. Vigilant. She hasn’t forgotten the bath they’d just put her through. Steve doesn’t know if she ever will.

Bucky still needs to get cleaned up, too. And he’s going to need about as much help as Brooklyn had. Per Bruce’s firm instructions, he’s supposed to be on bedrest for three weeks. And for the first week, no walking, either. They’re supposed to keep the wheelchair beside the bed. Bucky had laughed at that prognosis in the delivery room, and even Steve had been a little skeptical. Bucky was up and moving around just two days after having Lincoln, and after a week, they were walking their newborn around the Facility’s grounds early every morning. But he hadn’t torn, then. He also didn’t have twenty-two stitches to deal with.

Steve checks his phone. They’ve been home for an hour and they still haven’t eaten or showered. He doesn’t know why he had expected things to go smoothly — he learned from Lincoln that time slips away faster by a factor of three with a newborn in the house, and no task is simple or easy. It’s best to abandon expectations and do what he can, when he can, however he can.

It doesn’t take Brooklyn long to prove him absolutely correct.  Just when Steve is ready to hand her back off to Clint and let her sleep in her carrier for an hour or two, she jolts them both awake in the worst possible way. Steve breaks out in a sweat instantly. That sounded horrendous. That sounded _wet._

“Really?” Bucky asks her flatly. She stares him down as if she’s issuing a challenge, and he stares back critically. Steve doesn’t want to make assumptions too early in the game, but it looks like the beginning of a bitter rivalry.

And then the smell hits them. Steve would gladly be ninety-five pounds and _dead_ if it meant not having enhanced senses right now. He doesn’t just hold his breath — he has to exhale to clear that smell out of his lungs before he chokes. He pulls the collar of his shirt over his nose and turns on the fan, but it’s not enough. Forget Bucky’s privacy. He yanks the bathroom door open.

Steve is now facing down the opportunity to show his family just how much he loves them. To make the ultimate sacrifice. And it’s going to be hard, but they need him. Bucky is on bedrest. Bucky can’t change a diaper right now. The first three weeks are Steve’s responsibility.

He’d changed her once in the delivery room, but it hadn’t been too bad. It had taken him three or four minutes. But Bucky has told him a thousand times that girls are harder than boys when it comes to diaper changes, especially when the situation is already messy. Steve doesn’t doubt him. He’ll just have to think of the next three weeks as practice and hope for the best. He scoops Brooklyn out of Bucky’s arms, trying desperately not to gag. “I got her,” he promises staunchly.

* * *

 

Thirty minutes later, Brooklyn  has a clean diaper and Steve has nothing clean on his entire body. His shirt is dirty. His pants are dirty, something got in his hair and on his face when he’d been forced to wipe away the beads of sweat. Hands, shoes, bedroom, _conscience_ — none of it’s clean.

His beautiful daughter, just eight hours old, and he’s already been driven to shout, “Brooklyn, you fuckin’ _bitch.”_ He’s ashamed of himself. He hadn’t meant to do it — it had just _happened._ In his defense, she had definitely provoked the verbal abuse by letting him spend fifteen minutes cleaning her up and fighting back dry heaves, all while navigating the most inconvenient anatomy imaginable, and then she had the nerve to pee all over herself, the new diaper, and his shirt, pants, and shoes. Bucky had warned him that girls were just as dangerous in this respect, but had he listened? No, of course he hadn’t. He’d gotten her into a second fresh diaper, picked her up, and _then_ she’d done it all over again. Right out the leg of her diaper and all over his hand. Round two, somehow, was even worse.

That was when Steve had accidentally resorted to obscenities and name-calling. If he’d been alone, without Bucky and Clint shouting encouragement and glib remarks throughout the ordeal, he probably would have cried. He strips down to his underwear right beside the changing table and throws every single piece of his clothing in with her cloth diapers. It’s all equally soiled at this point. Really, it should all be incinerated.

“You still alive?” Bucky calls out from the bathroom as Steve walks past the door in nothing but briefs, with Brooklyn in a similar state of undress on his shoulder, looking sleepy and enormously pleased with herself and hanging her arm lazily off his shoulder.

“If you call this living.”

“Ooh, she _got_ you,” Clint giggles childishly.

Steve wraps her up in the proffered blanket and hands her off to Clint, smiling frostily.

“You know how many times I’ve priced hazmat suits on Amazon, man?”

“We’ve got ‘em in the labs,” Steve sighs. “We’re about to have one less, if she pulls that again.”

“Can Bucky eat anything?”

“Banner put him on liquids for now.”

“Yeah, I thought it might have gone down that way when I saw him roll up in a wheelchair. Anyway, I put a breakfast casserole thing in the oven — you and Lincoln can take care of it. It’s got butter and cheese, uh, potatoes, a bunch of meat, eggs — just kinda grabbed whatever had the most calories and threw it in. Go help him get cleaned up.”

“Thanks. Really.”

“Yeah, taste it before you thank me. Your fridge was full of _ingredients_ and shit and, listen, I don’t fuck with that anymore. I’m a cardboard box convert. I was like you once, two kids ago,” he says with an air of deep wisdom. “Moved on to lots of variations on Hamburger Helper by the third. Now we just microwave frozen chicken nuggets and Easy Mac. My kids run on fuckin’ sodium, man, but nobody’s starved to death, so it’s all good.”

 _And Bucky wants another one._ Steve is already afraid that he’s getting a glimpse of his future self.

“You okay? You look like I made you dissociate.”

“Yeah, it’s just...he’s already talking about having more. I just don’t — I don’t see how people do it.”

Clint finishes settling Brooklyn into her carrier and raises his hands to silence Steve, looking around as if he’s trying to catch some phantom noise in the room. “Sh-sh-sh — you hear that?” he whispers urgently, then taps his ear. “That’s the sound of the bar getting lower. That’s how we do it. We redefine success. You start out wanting ‘em to be doctors and lawyers...you end up aiming for no emergency room visits this week. Isn’t it beautiful?”

* * *

 

The shower that Steve and Bucky share together isn’t romantic by most standards. It certainly isn’t pretty. But Steve will always remember it as a moment that defined them — that embodied what they had become to one another. It’s the first time they’ve been alone together since Brooklyn was born, and the moment the door shuts, a deep sense of intimacy settles in the air.

Steve thinks momentarily back to their teenage years, when Bucky had cared for him through scarlet fever and pneumonia and influenza and bronchitis _every_ goddamn spring — he’d done everything for him, anything Steve had needed, and Bucky was right there, no questions asked, never any need for embarrassment or shame or apologies. And he’s _tried_ to repay him — he’s tried to live up to the standard of selfless love that Bucky had set back in those days. He must have done something right. Bucky doesn’t look well. His t-shirt is filthy — blood on the hem and milk on the front. His hair has been tied back for hours, and the escaping whisps are tangled, wild, and sweat-damp. His bare legs are streaked with drying blood again, and the white ceramic of the toilet is marbled and smeared with red. But even sitting there on the toilet, bleeding, tired, filthy, in a body that looks so starkly different from what the mirror has always shown him, he seems _proud._ He seems to know just how loved he is. The way Steve looks at him in moments like these is evidence of it. They’re inseparable in the most basic sense of the word. Everything is shared, nothing is divisible.

“Hold on,” Steve whispers, leaning over so Bucky can wrap his arms around Steve’s neck. Steve cradles him to his chest and Bucky trusts his strength, and he picks him up off the toilet and sets him carefully on the stool they’ve placed inside the tub.

Steve makes quick work of cleaning up the floor and the toilet seat, then grabs a towel and rolls it up to set on the floor of the empty bathtub. “Here — see if you can kneel on the towel and just rest your arms on the stool—”

“I’m gonna need some—”

“Yeah, I’ve got you, just hold on to my neck again.”

“Already bled all over the—”

“Okay, careful, baby, go slow. Let’s turn around—”

“I don’t know _how_ I’m gonna get on my knees—”

Steve stands behind him and slides his forearms against Bucky’s sides. “Just let yourself collapse. I’ll set you down real easy.”

“So strong,” Bucky smiles, voice strained — the cramps still rippling through his abdomen are getting the better of him, crippling his already exhausted body. “Seems like just yesterday, you needed me anytime you wanted a jar open.”

“You can still open jars for me if you want to,” he chuckles. “You got me beat on grip strength any day.”

With the towel under his knees and the shower stool to rest his arms on, Bucky is able to hold himself up without too much strain on his overtaxed muscles. Steve crouches behind him and, using the showerhead and his hands, he washes every inch over Bucky’s body from his hair down to the bottoms of his feet, treating him as gently as he had treated Brooklyn. He works in silence for fifteen minutes, almost hypnotized by the slow, keenly focused task. He watches a constant stream of watery-blood flowing back toward the drain. All his own selfish happiness aside, he still can’t believe that Bucky wants to put himself through this again. But that’s a conversation for another time — after they’ve both recovered.

Bucky is quiet and pliant through most of it. Steve hears him shudder once, air hissing through his teeth as the warm water runs between his legs, rinsing away the drying blood and stinging against his freshly-stitched skin. Steve leans down and takes a good look at the damage, now that it’s been a few hours. If anything, it looks worse than it had in the delivery room.

“God, she tore you up,” he shakes his head and sighs, frustrated with sympathy.

“Not her fault,” Bucky laughs weakly.

“No, it’s _mine._ Man, I should have tried to stretch you out a little more before—”

“Steve, don’t — you were perfect, baby. Couldn’t have done that without you in a million years. How’s it look, is it bad?”

“Do you want me to grab a mirror? It’s pretty bad.”

“Fuck, no. Just tell me.”

“Really swollen. Looks bruised, too. Stitches look good — wish you hadn’t needed ‘em, though. How sore are you?”

“What kind of a question is that?”

“Well, I’ve never had one, I’m just—”

“Feels like somebody put a shotgun down my throat and fired it outta my ass, Steve — there, you happy?”

“No!” Steve laughs even as his brows knit in a frown. “Jesus, Bucky, you’re killing me.”

“It’ll heal up fast.”

“Are _you_ happy?” Steve asks, then falters. He had meant to wait. This isn’t the time to bring this up — not when they’re both at the end of their rope like this. He blames his own exhaustion for the fact that, against his better judgment, he broaches the subject anyway. “I mean — after it’s all over — _now —_ does it still feel like it’s _worth_ all of this?”

“Yes,” Bucky answers instantly. “Lincoln and Brooklyn — God, Steve, _yes,_ of course.”

“Not Lincoln and Brooklyn,” he tries to explain. “I meant — do you really want to go through this again?”

“If you’ll let me.”

“Buck,” Steve laughs. “I don’t mean to sound too much like a Catholic immigrant back here, but twelve isn’t out of the question.”

“Twelve’s out the question.”

“Okay.”

And now it’s Bucky’s turn to laugh. “You really want more, though?”

“Well — _yeah.”_

“You know — I thought I was being selfish. With Lincoln. When I told you I wanted to go through with it.”

“I thought you were just doing it because you knew it was what I wanted.”

“Jesus — no. Steve, I wanted kids all my life. I wanted kids before I even _met_ you. I wanted kids when I _was_ a kid.”

“You never told me that.”

“Well, I didn’t think we could have kids. Seemed pointless to say anything about it.”

“I thought about it all the time. But you’re right. DIdn’t really occur to me that it was possible.”

“Not like we could have known _this_ was going to happen.”

“What?”

“You know, everything. Hydra, Strazds, Ruth, Washington, Berlin, Wakanda, moving in here, finding the AVOTs files, finding Ruth...everything.”

Steve smiles. “It’s been a hell of a ride.”

“It’s been perfect,” Bucky corrects him. "Not over yet, either.”

Bucky seems totally fine as he finishes that sentence, and then suddenly he crumples against the stool, head in his hands. For a moment, Steve thinks he must have just gotten worn out from sitting up, until his back and shoulders shudder with the force of a sob so deep and wracking that Steve feels it in his own chest. He leans forward and hooks his arm around Bucky’s shoulders, pulling him close and supporting his weight against his own body.

“Baby, what is it?” Steve had just reached around Bucky’s body to wash his chest and stomach, and he’d been trying — very carefully — to massage the low swell of his belly how Bruce had shown him. He doesn’t think he hurt him — Bucky doesn’t seem to be in physical _pain_.

It takes Bucky a few long seconds before he can collect himself enough to form words, and as Steve watches a fresh, bright stream of blood creep like wisps of smoke toward the drain, he begins to realize the source of his partner’s sadness. “Oh, sweetheart, it’s okay. She’s just sleeping in the living room, baby. She’s right here with us.”

“I can’t _feel_ her anymore—” Bucky chokes out.

“It’s okay, Buck. She’s alright. You’re alright.”

“Miss having her — right here with me—”

Steve sets the showerhead aside and lays both his hands on Bucky’s belly — it’s still round and stretched, but it’s already beginning to narrow out around his ribcage. Already a little softer. Like an empty bed in the morning, still unmade, all the warmth of sleep still clinging to it as if it’s trying to remember the weight of the body that had lain there. Bucky’s sadness sinks into him like it’s passing through their skin, and Steve gets a momentary glimpse of his sense of profound, bittersweet loss. It’s selfish and protective, greedy, lonely, loving. But it’s to be expected. It’ll pass.

“I — I know she’s right here — I do, but I just — I can’t—”

“I know, Bucky. Me, too.”

* * *

 

At nine o’clock, as they begin to settle into the bedroom, Steve’s phone buzzes from the hamper, where he’d thrown it along with his dirty jeans. He retrieves it as Bucky scolds him, and calls Sam back.

“Good morning!”

“Hey, man, how are you?”

“I just slept for seven hours straight, dude — I’m almost human again.”

“How’s Lincoln?”

“Oh, he’s out. I could slap him in the face with a syrupy waffle and he’d keep on snoring. He was _wired_ last night, though. Fell asleep making little sissy a birthday card.”

“Aw, man,” Steve groans through his laughter, clutching his chest. “That’s too much.”

“Oh, that’s nothing, man — get ready for this: he put his whole ten dollars in it.”

“God almighty.”

“Right?”

“We can take him back whenever you need us to.”

“Nah, we’re good for right now. You guys need _me?_ I’m literally down the hall.”

“We’re alright. We’re gonna try to get a little sleep after we eat something.”

“Bucky good?”

“Well, twenty-two stitches and bedrest, but—” He glances over at Bucky appraisingly. Bucky has just downed a pair of 2,500 calorie shakes in five minutes, and now he’s busy emptying half a canister of Dermoplast between his legs and settling down on top of an ice pack. Still, he finds the time to flip Steve off. “Yeah, he’s good.”

“Cool, I’m going back to bed. Slim’ll get me up when he’s ready,” he yawns.

“Good call, Sam,” Steve grins. “You deserve it.”

“Hey — I’m Brooklyn’s godfather, too, right?” Sam sounds like he’s already drifting off.

“You’re the _only_ godfather, Sam.”

“Just checking.”

* * *

 

They’re never going to rest again. Half an hour later, Steve has eaten as much of Clint’s casserole as circumstances would allow, and Brooklyn has nursed herself into a coma. Steve had set up a little fold-away bassinet beside the bed in between bites of his own food, since Bucky won’t be able to walk back and forth to her crib, but he hasn’t put her in it just yet. He’s pulled the room’s singular chair over to the bedside next to Bucky and taken off his t-shirt so that Brooklyn can lay against him, skin-to-skin. Once he’d started rubbing her back, he’d found out pretty quickly that she wouldn’t let him stop. He can’t even slow down without her fussing. His hand has to be in constant, steady motion. Which means the remainder of his food will have to wait. Clint’s taking a nap out on their sofa.

Bucky eyes have finally fallen shut, and Steve is sure he must have fallen asleep the second he hit the mattress. He had finally settled down on his back, with a pillow under his knees and an icepack between his legs, hugging another pillow to his face. The remaining three pillows in their apartment are underneath his head and feet. Steve doesn’t mind not having them: he could sleep on a bed of hot nails right now.

He watches Bucky’s breathing slow as the tension in his brow begins to release. Brooklyn is equally quiet and calm, although her hands are busy clutching blindly at everything within reach from her perch on Steve’s chest, with her head tucked just under his chin. She explores the chair’s upholstered back, Steve’s hair, the shell of his ear, his beard, panting excitedly when her clumsy fingers find a new texture. Steve is amazed by how purposeful her movements already seem. She’s dexterous. Strong. She seems to have a little more control over her gross motor skills than Lincoln had on his first day, and her grip is _incredible._ Considering her size in addition to all of that, and Steve hardly feels like he has a newborn. The hand that’s stroking up and down her spine falters for a fraction of a second, and Brooklyn doesn’t appreciate that. Doesn’t hesitate to let him know, either — she uses that powerful grip and five sharp fingernails to pinch the skin of Steve’s throat, right by his Adam’s apple. He might have to rub her back all day and all night, at this rate.

He _will,_ of course. Gladly.

“Where’s my phone?”

Bucky’s mumbled question comes as a shock to Steve. He’d been sure that Bucky had dozed off. “Right here on the nightstand — Buck, how the hell are you still awake? Don’t worry about your phone—”

“I gotta call Ruth.”

“Shit!” Steve gasps. “God, I can’t believe I forgot about that — she called earlier, right before we went to medical.” He can’t move too much with Brooklyn dozing on his chest, so he reaches out to the nightstand and just knocks Bucky’s phone onto the bed. It occupies his hand for about a second, but it’s long enough that Brooklyn feels the need to let out one little piercing scream and slap him in the neck. “Brooklyn — Jesus, I’m sorry,” he laughs.

“I _heard_ that,” Bucky huffs. “She’s got a hell of a right hook, huh?”

“She’s kind of mean.”

“I know, I fucking love it,” Bucky smiles as the phone begins to ring on the other end of the line. He puts it on speaker for Steve.

Ruth answers instantly. “Dad!”

“Hi, sugar.”

“Is everything — did everything go—?”

“Can I put you on video?”

“Yes! Yeah, I’m — I’m alone! Go! Oh, shit. Dad, you look awful.”

“Lemme show you why,” Bucky laughs, and turns the phone toward Steve and Brooklyn. Steve wishes he’d had a little warning — he would have liked to put on a shirt. Granted, any awkwardness is offset by the opportunity to show off his daughter to Ruth.

“Jesus,” says Ruth.

Steve decides she can fuss all she wants. He cradles her in the crook of his elbow and turns her around so that  Ruth can get a better look at her.

“You had her two weeks ago and just didn’t tell me.”

“She’s about ten hours old.”

“She came out like that? Did you have a caesarian section?”

“Nope, no painkiller either.”

“Can you _walk?”_

“Hell no, I can’t _walk.”_

“What’s her name?”

“Brooklyn Shelby.”

Ruth claps her hands over her mouth like she might burst into tears any moment. “I — I _love_ it. Hi, Brooklyn. Hi, baby girl!” she giggles.

Brooklyn kicks her legs against Steve’s arm. Steve thinks she must like Ruth’s voice. Steve’s just happy _someone_ loves her name. He’s even happier that it’s _Ruth_ who loves it.

“God, that’s so strange,” Ruth sighs, suddenly sounding a little nervous. “I have this picture — well, God, I don’t even know where to start. I just — I just rented a car, and — that’s definitely not the right place to start.” She takes a deep breath. “I’m at LaGuardia.”

“You’re in New York?” Steve asks, numb with excitement and fearful curiosity. He’d asked her to call before she traveled. She should have told them about this _anyway._ Something isn’t right. Bucky says nothing at all. Finally, he remembers to turn the phone back around. Steve comes to sit beside him on the bed so he can see Ruth on the screen.

“I — I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have just flown in without calling but — something really strange happened.”

“Ruth, are you safe?”

“Yes,” she replies immediately, and then balks — looks away for a moment. Takes one more deep breath. “I don’t know.”

“What happened?” Bucky demands.

“I — I’m not sure. I went outside and — I don’t know, someone got past the gate somehow and they...they left some boxes. There wasn’t anything on them, no return address or labels or anything. I thought maybe it was just something I ordered and forgot about. It was — it was full of these old file boxes. Film reels. I think it’s some of his old stuff.”

Strazds. Someone had found more of his research. That would mean they’d had access to an old lab or office or storage bunker. And it wasn’t one of the Avengers’ teams that had dug it up. There aren’t many other people out there looking for the old strongholds and having any luck. Steve can only think of one other group with the motive and means. And they’d brought it right to Ruth’s doorstep. They’d known where to find her.

“How fast can you get to Chazy?” Steve asks. “Facility’s up by Lake Alice.”

Ruth’s hand fills the screen for a moment as she types in the location. “About six hours.”

“We can send one of the quinjets—” Steve offers.

But Ruth shakes her head. “No — that’s — please don’t. I need some time. Before I see you guys. And — are you even sure you want me to...what about Lincoln?”

“We’ll talk to him,” Bucky promises. “As soon as he wakes up.”

“Okay,” she breathes, resigning her fear. “I’m so sorry. You — this is just such a bad time for you guys—”

“Ruth, just get here and stay safe, that’s all we care about,” Steve reminds her firmly. “If — if anything feels off or strange, _call us._ I wish you’d just let us send a jet—”

“I think I’ll be alright. But...I’ll keep my eyes open.”

“We love you,” Steve says seriously. Bucky turns toward him for a moment, surprised that Steve had taken it upon himself to say so.

Ruth just smiles, like she’s trying to put them at ease. “I love you guys, too. I’ll be there in six hours.”

“Call every hour,” Bucky orders.

“I will, Dad.”

They end the call.

“Steve—”

“I know,” he nods, laying Brooklyn down in her bassinet and yanking his shirt on as quickly as he can. “I’ll find someone to go meet her.”

“Is Vision—”

“They should be landing in the next hour.”

“Okay, I’ll—”

“No, you won’t.” Steve doesn’t let him get any further. He turns back toward Bucky, one hand on the door, and gives him a sharp look.

“I can—”

“Bucky, go to sleep. If you want to help, get _better.”_

Bucky shuts his mouth. He doesn’t argue. “Just make sure she’s alright.”

Steve is at a loss for where to go. He wants to go meet Ruth himself — verify that she’s not being followed, check the contents of the boxes if he can. He wants to take full responsibility and control of that situation. But he wants to stay _here._ Bucky’s going to need help, especially when Lincoln comes back from Sam’s apartment. He’s going to have to delegate one task and — somehow, even against his most basic instincts — let the other one go. “I’ll have her here by the time you wake up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time, we play: What's in the Box?


	19. Woman on Fire

She looks in the rearview mirror so often that she sometimes forgets to look at the road ahead.

She’s beginning to wish that Steve hadn’t said anything about being followed. At the very least, she wishes that he’d waited until she was clear of Grand Central Parkway. Even driving in Guyana on the left side of the road had been easier than New York’s profoundly absurd signs and traffic patterns. She can tolerate stress; she thrives on it, in fact, but driving an unfamiliar car in an unfamiliar country with sensitive cargo in the backseat _and_ the possibility that she’s being followed is a little too much for even her tastes. She enjoys a challenge, but this is beginning to feel as if she’s trapped in some high-octane blockbuster movie.

She puts the thought of being followed firmly aside. Steve wouldn’t approve, and her poor dad would certainly lose his mind. He was always looking over his shoulder, even when he seemed happy. Living in a place like this, with drivers like these, she understands his unabating paranoia: she has clear childhood memories of living in warzones that were less chaotic.

Ruth makes herself stop watching the mirrors. It will hardly matter if she’s being followed or not if she crashes the rental car. And really, if she wrecks a _rental,_ the best she can hope for is a swift death upon impact.

After an hour and a half, she’s forced to admit that her sense of calm is forced at best and, at worst, an insubstantial illusion. Her feet and hands are freezing cold with anxiety, but she’d long since shut off the heater and shoved her coat into the passenger’s seat — she’s drenched in acrid sweat and she doesn’t doubt that it’s already beginning to stain her clothes.

The snow is coming down in thick, driving sheets and the windshield wipers are barely keeping up. Stopping is difficult and risky on the sleet-covered roads, so she does what any sensible person would do and drives slowly, leaving plenty of space between herself and the next driver. Unfortunately, every time she leaves more than a car’s length, someone merges into the gap, and she has to decelerate even more. She can sense the annoyance of every driver behind her. Frequently, she can also hear and see it, by way of obscene shouts and emphatic rude hand gestures. She’s not sure yet that she likes New York.

The two cardboard boxes in the back seat are a presence all their own, watching her like a pair of unfriendly eyes. She gets the sense that they know something she doesn’t — which isn’t entirely untrue. She hasn’t yet taken the time to examine all their contents; the very fact that they’d made it to her doorstep was reason enough to involve Steve and her dad, because this is what they _do._ They’d made it their jobs to monitor Hydra’s activities, and as diligently as she’s trying to put the thought from her mind, Ruth knows that Hydra is involved with her current predicament. She can only hope that the involvement isn’t _direct._

Her dad will know what to do. Steve will know what to do.

She hasn’t overlooked the possibility that she’s doing exactly the wrong thing by bringing the boxes to the New Avengers Facility. Someone may have left them hoping that she would do just that, but she trusts that Steve and her dad will anticipate that risk and plan for it, along with the rest of their team.

She shouldn’t be asking them to do this for her. Not _now,_ when they’ve only just brought little Brooklyn home. She couldn’t have taken the boxes to the police or to another agency — not without exposing things her dad doesn’t care to have publicly exposed. But perhaps, a little guilty voice inside her says, she should have kept this to herself. She could have hidden the boxes. Waited.

Except that she’s scared and shaken. Her life has always run at a close parallel to Hydra, but her father had made sure, since her infancy, that Hydra never intersected with Ruth’s life. He had taken her away from them and then he had run as fast and as far as he could. When Hydra got too close, they would run again.

Juris had always told her, with every swift escape from home and school and country, that it was his fault. She was being uprooted yet again because of the things he’d done — the crimes he had committed and the mistakes he had made, but she had always seen that he was giving up everything, as well, every time they ran. He would do anything to keep her safe; she knew that, if she knew anything. He had never given her any reason not to trust him completely.

Now, without her father here to tell her to pack her bags and ask no questions, Hydra has come to her doorstep, and in his absence, she has only his advice to carry with her: run fast and run far, and don’t wait.

He had always told her that, if Hydra got too close, they would go to S.H.I.E.L.D.. He would turn himself in and tell them she was his own daughter, and they would be separated, maybe forever, but she would be safe. He didn’t think they would put her in a lab. When it was discovered that S.H.I.E.L.D. had been infiltrated by Hydra since the 1970s, her father had been silent and terrified, and he had clutched his chest, like death had brushed his shoulder and then passed by. _I almost let them have you,_ he had rasped breathlessly. _Rūta, I’m sorry — I didn’t know. I won’t let those bastards have you. Listen to me — I won’t._ After that, he had told her they would go to the Avengers. Directly to Colonel Nicholas Fury or Captain Rogers, if they could. He had never trusted Stark.

Well, that’s exactly what she’s doing. Circumstances are nothing like what her father might have imagined, but she’s following his instructions as best she can. She hopes she runs fast enough.

* * *

 

It’s been two hours and she’s still stuck between the George Washington Bridge and the New Jersey turnpike. The heavy snowfall and slick roads have run a dozen cars off the road and the highway ahead is congested every few hundred feet by cars on the shoulder, stuck in the drifts, hazard lights flashing. The majority of her drive is still ahead of her, along the length of the I-87 past the turnpike.

She sets her guilt aside for a moment. She doesn’t want to bother him — he had sounded so tired, and there’s still that little voice inside her telling her that Steve must resent her, however well he hides it. But she needs to call him again.

He answers immediately. “You okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” she replies, finding herself smiling in spite of her nervousness. “But it’s going to be longer than I expected. The roads are really bad—”

“Where are you?”

“Well, _trying_ to navigate the New Jersey turnpike, but it’s—”

“Hell on earth. Do you have money for the tolls?”

“Yeah, I changed some pesos at the airport—”

“Keep driving for now. Is your phone charged? Can you keep it on?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Okay — I’m sending someone out to you. He’ll be able to track your location  — is that okay? He can be there in about an hour.”

“Is—what? Who should I be looking for? How is he going to get here that fast?”

“He’s flying.”

“Oh, Steve, no. You’re not honestly sending a jet, are you? Please, don’t—”

“I didn’t say I was sending a jet,” Steve replies. “I'm sending an android. Just so happens, that android can fly.”

Ruth grins entirely by accident, before remembering that her situation could potentially be very dangerous. But... _flying? A flying android?_ What sort of bizarre world has she stepped into? Has she become Alice, now?“Oh!” is all she can manage to say.

Steve laughs warmly. “Yeah, the Avengers don’t have a bad welcoming committee.”

“Steve—”

“Yeah?”

He says that like he’s ready to do anything in the world for her, and all she would have to do is ask. He’s always been so kind — beyond kind, he’s _familiar,_ in a moment when nothing else is _._ Protective. Loving. So much like her dad, and yet she and Steve don’t share the same painful past or impossible reunion. She doesn’t mind it all that much — the way they both sometimes treat her like a little girl. Bucky had missed that time with her, and his desire to reclaim it occasionally shows, and she doesn’t begrudge him that. And she certainly doesn’t look forty-eight. She especially doesn’t mind their overbearing protection right now: she’s smart, and she’s physically strong, and likes to think that she’s a generally capable person, but she’s on unfamiliar ground. She teaches linguistics at a university. She’s grown accustomed to her tenured job and her little house, her Fiat, her garden, living close to the father that had always showered her with every book she’d wanted, and caring for her tank full of fish. She’s not ready to take on Hydra. Not alone.

The silence has stretched across long seconds now, and Steve is still waiting on the other end of the line. She clears her throat apologetically. “I just wanted to say — well, thank you.”

She hears his soft exhale, and feels his smile. “Stay safe.”

* * *

 

An hour later, Ruth is idling at another toll station, surrounded on all sides by snow-covered cars, ruminating deeply on the inefficiency of US roadways. She wishes she’d thought to download an audio book or something, anything at all to occupy her mind during these tense periods of waiting, but instead she’s sitting in traffic amid mounds of dirty snow, conjugating Latin verbs to keep herself from panicking.

To her abject mortification, she’s doing it aloud when a man knocks on the window of her passenger-side door. At first, she’s startled at having been caught, and then she remembers Hydra, and the boxes, and Steve’s warning. Whatever her reasoning, she screams sharply and narrowly stops herself from throwing her thermos at the window.

The man almost seems shocked by her reaction, but shows it only by lifting his eyebrows and taking a step back from the car. He raises his hands and shows them to her, like he wants her to see that he’s unarmed or show her the cup and the paper bag he’s holding, but it doesn’t make her feel any better. Where had he _come_ from? She had been distracted, but she ought to have noticed a man wandering along the shoulder of the highway. It was as if he had appeared out of thin air.

“Hello, sorry,” he says loudly and clearly, hoping to be understood through her firmly locked car door. “Steve sent me.”

She reaches for her phone, ready to call again and ask for a description of the person Steve had sent. This man certainly couldn’t be an android. He’s flesh and blood, wearing a peacoat and a red scarf and a grey flat cap, and his expressions, features, and inflections are undeniably human.

“I’m the ‘android,’” he says, as if he'd read her mind, leaning toward the window and lowering his voice.

She _knows_ AI and how it learns language, how it speaks — and this isn’t it. It’s perfect Oxford English, but it’s too natural, too indicative of human thought to be AI. She’s calling Steve.

But the man glances at the cars surrounding them, transfers the coffee cup to the crook of his arm, leans against the door, and then reaches into the car and pops the lock up manually.

More specifically, he reaches _through_ the car. The window doesn’t break. His hand is unscathed. He just...puts his hand through the door as if it’s not there at all. Ruth is too stunned to move or speak. She sits there lamely as he opens the car door from the outside — normally, casually — and gets in.

“ _Dios —_ fuck, what—?” Eight languages, and this is the best she can do.

“I’m so sorry to have done that,” the man says sincerely. “People were staring and and it’s better we don’t attract too much attention.”

“You’re the android?”

“Yes, and I’ve scanned the boxes in your back seat and found no trackers or explosives, although there’s a good deal of mold on the paper. Stachybotrys chartarum.”

“Oh my God.” Ruth is recovering from the initial shock, but she would not say she’s recovering _well._

“I’ve brought you coffee and two breakfast sandwiches. And you can call me Vision, if you want. Or Vis, I suppose. Some people prefer to—” he smiles with a strange sort of pride and simpering self-satisfaction, “give me nicknames.”

“You — you brought food?”

“Yes,” Vision confirms, passing her the coffee, which she accepts rather lamely. “I know several enhanced individuals, like yourself. Incredible metabolisms. They all seem to be constantly hungry.”

Ruth can smell bacon and eggs and cheese through the bag, already. And the unmistakable sharpness of a sourdough English muffin. “I’m...I _am_ always hungry.”

* * *

 

Vision is _incredible._ With his calm directions, the drive becomes easier, and with his company, it seems far shorter than the seven hours it takes. He even takes the wheel for a while, after many assurances that he’s fully capable of driving. By hour seven, they’ve covered everything from constructed languages to language as a tool of oppression to why Shakespeare chose to write in iambic pentameter and the lost context of Biblical stories.

She had called Steve when they were about forty-five minutes away from the Facility. Everyone knew that she was on her way now, and had been briefed on the situation. Natasha Romanov — Ruth knew the name from the news about the Insight disaster and the subsequent leaks, of course — was investigating her situation and Hydra’s activities in South America. In the meantime, Steve had finally managed to sleep for a while. He had sounded much better the last time they’d spoken. Her dad was _still_ sleeping, thank goodness. Ruth isn’t sure if Brooklyn is as big as she had looked over the phone’s camera, but she didn’t doubt that her dad needed all the rest he could get.

She’s more thankful than ever, lately, for the education and travel that had opened her mind to the unfamiliar and unexpected — she doesn’t want her dad to feel any different, even though he’s certainly a medical anomaly on multiple counts. Her father had told her, over and over again in the days before he died, that Bucky had made a gift of torture he hadn’t chosen, and that she should always strive to remember that. Sometimes, he would mumble to himself, as an afterthought to those last desperate instructions, _Thank God, he’s alright. Thank God the Soldier made a good life for himself._ So she remembers.

“Are you excited?” Vision asks her, as they make the slow drive down the narrow roads that lead to the Facility’s grounds. The area is thickly wooded and difficult to access, and although the snowstorm that had followed her from New York City and all the way through Paramus is long behind them, the conditions are still less than ideal for the small rental car. “I know you must be shaken, still, but I was curious to hear if you might also be looking forward to this. To seeing them, I mean.”

“Of course, I am,” she laughs. “I’m always glad to see them — and it’s so rare that I get to spend more than a day or two with either of them, especially now that Lincoln is older, you know?”

“That is...so nice to hear,” Vision smiles fondly. “You’ll — you’ll have to forgive me. I have so little experience seeing these complex family dynamics firsthand, and I find it absolutely fascinating.”

“I’ve waited so long to meet Lincoln,” she breathes, suddenly overwhelmed by the fact that soon, she’ll _get_ to meet him. “But — and look, don’t repeat this — I think I’m even more excited to meet Brooklyn.”

“Why?” Vision asks eagerly.

“Well, I wanted a little sister. When I was a little girl, I kept telling my father, you know, _maybe_ he would find another baby somewhere to rescue and adopt. Maybe a little girl, like me. Someone I could play school with and read to and play dress-up with...I stopped thinking about it once I was older, of course. And now — here I am, and I just turned forty-eight in December, and I finally have the little sister I always wanted. I’m going to—”

“Excuse me—” Vision says suddenly. She glances over at him only to find his expression eerily blank, as if he’s listening to something only he can hear. Ruth is so focused on waiting for some hint, _anything_ from his still features that she nearly forgets to watch the road. “Call Steve.”

She doesn’t question him. She just picks up the phone. His demand is too plain, too urgent to ask what he knows or how he knows it. The phone rings. In the silence between each successive ring, she can hear her own heart beating faster.

Vision doesn’t wait to be told that no one answered. “Call James.”

That call is answered immediately. By the automated voicemail. Her dad had never set it up with a personalized message. She chews her lip, waiting impatiently for the tone. “Dad, call me, please.” And she hangs up.

Vision doesn’t waste any time weighing his decision. “I have to go.”

And with that, he changes. Everything — his skin, hair, clothing, all of it — melts away in a strange, fragmented wave from his eyes and out to his feet and fingertips, leaving behind angular metal plates and skin like red carbon fiber, and a bright stone set on his brow like a diadem. Ruth is finding it harder by the moment to believe that she’s awake at all. “Stay on this road. You’ll reach the Facility’s main entrance in six minutes. Don’t attempt to get past the gate until I contact you.”

Without another word, he leans forward and places a hand on the dashboard and glances briefly upward, then stands up, passing like a ghost through the seatbelt and the roof of the car, floating away like a body caught by the Rapture. And she’s alone.

She drives recklessly fast and turns six minutes into four, dividing her focus between the road and the phone clutched in her hand. Over and over and over again, she repeats the futile cycle — “Call Steve,” and listening — five rings, six rings — “End call. Call Dad.” Another automated reply. “End call. God _damn_ it — call Dad.” The automated reply starts again, and this time she forces herself to wait for the message tone. She would be ashamed of how frantic and small her voice sounds, if she had the time to care. “Dad, _please_ call me if you can. Vision is on his way, he thought something might have—”

But she stops. All the breath seems to seep out of her lungs, replaced with something colder than the winter air. Before she can see the Facility beyond the dense trees, her eyes are drawn upward, above the dark web of bare branches toward the sky.

Smoke.

Not far ahead, even through the snow-dampened air, she can hear the low, buzzing drone of an alarm.

She turns a corner, ties sliding on the fresh snow, and hits the treeline. The road she’s on wraps around the Facility and would take her up a long incline and to the main entrance. She can’t see the Facility itself beyond the hill yet, but she can see the gate. Two people in uniform are leaving it, running fast toward a car parked nearby. Guards, abandoning their posts. They speed off down the road without looking back.

Ruth takes a deep breath. She’s never done anything like this before, and it goes directly against Vision’s orders. But if there was ever a time to start—

She presses the gas pedal to the floor and shuts her eyes. Who knows how strong the gate on the New Avengers Facility is? It might not break. She’s _sure_ it’s not going to break — she’s going to hit this bar at full speed and decapitate herself and _die—_

She feels the impact, hears twisting metal and the spatter of gravel on her windshield — but she’s still moving. The car is moving, and she’s alive. She’ll offer to pay for the damage, once she knows that her family is alright.

The column of smoke grows thicker and and darker as she speeds around the the hillside to its crest.

The Facility is destroyed. Like bombs have gone off inside it. Above the main entrance, the glass facade is gone and shards and debris litter the white ground below. The smoke is coming from the building’s center, but she can’t see the exact point of origin. People are pouring out of the exits in small groups, mouths covered by their hands and shirts and faces streaked with dirt, some streaked with blood. Ruth gets out of the car. She looks at every face she can see, and finds no one familiar.

There’s a sharp boom somewhere in the distance, like a cannon blast or the crack of ice that starts an avalanche, which echoes over the hillside. Slow seconds later, a cloud of dust rises from the north side of the building, and there’s a low, long groan in the air and a tremor in the ground under her feet. Ruth runs toward the edge of the building, following the sound, hoping she’ll see Steve or her dad or Vision making it out of an exit somewhere. She reaches the building’s corner and the other side comes into view — plainer than the front of the building, lined with smaller windows. Along one floor, she can see glass doors leading to little balconies. It’s the Facility’s residential wing — it couldn’t be anything else.

The pitch of the groan rises sharply, and the cloud of brown dust rolls like liquid over the roof, spilling over the edge into the frozen air.

There’s a single moment of silence, and then the beams buckle. The spaces between the floors shudder and distort, and then the face of the building itself seems to bulge outward for a split second. Ruth covers her eyes. She hears it happen, but she doesn’t see it — by the time she looks, it’s over.

The north wall of the Facility had collapsed.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, thank you to Dee for the continual support and love. A huge thank you also to weirdlet and araniaart, both of whom I fuckin' adore.


End file.
